Editorial cartoon by Brian Gable
One more discussion of prorogation before we move on to something else - which may be Senate seats given the number of hints and rumours that the newest additions to the Red Chamber will be announced Tuesday.
Although a substantial effort is being made to mount protests in the face of what opponents are calling the suspension of democracy, (the Facebook page Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament had nearly 24,000 members at dawn Tuesday morning) no one really knows how the shut-down is playing with the public at large.
That's because research companies have yet to release the results of surveys conducted after the Prime Minister Stephen Harper asked the Governor-General to prorogue.
But Nik Nanos of Nanos Research says you don't need a bunch of surveys to tell you that prorogation is unlikely to have a significant influence upon voting behaviour.
"Will this annoy the opposition parties? Absolutely," Mr. Nanos said in a telephone interview. "Will the opposition parties believe that this is a broader narrative of the government using Parliament to its own political devices? Absolutely."
But the average Canadian is unlikely to be riled by a two-month break from partisan politics, he said. "Especially since, from the perspective of voters, there really isn't a big issue that requires the emergency attention of the House of Commons."
It's pretty clear, said Mr. Nanos, that Mr. Harper invoked prorogation for the second time in just over a year "to clear the deck for two months so that the opposition parties don't have a platform to attack or question the government."
That's a very clever communications move, he said. "It's kind of like poking the opposition parties with another short stick."
But whining about the House not sitting is unlikely to score points with the voting public, Mr. Nanos said.
What is likely to register, he said, is the notion that the Conservatives have given themselves a two-month vacation. "Talking substantively about what this means for Parliament and Parliament's work would probably be a better angle" for an opposition that wants to chip away at government support, the pollster suggested.
Meanwhile, if Mr. Harper does not have plans to go into an election immediately shortly after the return of the House in March, he should prepare for a rough ride, Mr. Nanos added.
The Conservatives, he said, "are poisoning the well even before the next session starts because the opposition parties are going to be stewing for eight weeks and when they come back in the House, you can rest assured that it will be a raucous and very highly charged partisan atmosphere."
(Editorial cartoon by Brian Gable/The Globe and Mail)
--
Update Some 132 Canadian political scientists from 36 universities and colleges have co-signed a statement calling for federal electoral reform within the next five years.
"In recent days, editorial writers and political commentators have focused on the key role of the House of Commons - and opposition parties in particular - which is to hold the government to account," Bronwen Bruch, President of Fair Vote Canada, a national citizens' campaign for electoral reform, said in a statement.
"While we join those condemning the inappropriate shut-down of the Parliament, an even bigger obstacle to democratically accountable government is our antiquated voting system that creates an unrepresentative and unstable House of Commons. First-past-the-post usually creates either 'majority' governments that the majority voted against, or unstable minority governments where any party nearing 40 per cent in the polls has incentive to pull the plug in hope of winning an undeserved majority of seats."