53 Days

The Governor General (and I really am glad I’m not her) decided this morning after an unprecedented 2 hour meeting with the Prime Minister, to prorogue parliament, without any limits, for 53 days.

I was going to make a chipper return to knitblogging today, but instead I’m going to take a break until tomorrow and knit my nice little hat, and my really beautiful socks,

Brownsock41208

(See? Aren’t they nice? Don’t you feel better looking at the wool?) and I’m going to thank Meredith for my new favourite phrase that sums up how I feel about this whole thing really nicely. I think I have “rage fatigue”.

I don’t know if the Governor General did the right thing, I know she did a legal thing and that she was likely very well advised by persons of greater experience and education than myself. I don’t know what the Prime Minister will do with his 53 days, or what the opposition will do with theirs, but I do have some very strong feelings about the precedent set by allowing a public official to avoid our duly elected MPs for that time. I’m not a Conservative – or a Liberal for that matter… but I am a very strong believer in the concept of “responsible government”, which is the cornerstone of our system, and is the idea that the government is responsible to Parliament, and I’m not sure how I can translate what’s happening now… where Parliament has been prorogued and the doors locked so that a Prime Minister doesn’t have to be responsible for his decisions to the house. One would hope that the man was strong enough in his convictions that he wouldn’t play with the concept of responsible government, and who knows, he will have to face them in the end. He’s an educated and intelligent man (just because I don’t agree with him doesn’t mean I hate him) who does head a minority government that was legally elected, so he’s certainly within his rights to ask for it. Joe points out, and he is right, that taking a thoughtful break for intelligent reflection until cooler heads can prevail is certainly very Canadian.

I hope that they all return in 53 days with a plan that reflects a new spirit of compromise, concession and noble behaviour. I know that I am not the only Canadian who will be devastated if this 53 days is used for further hurtful, divisive, attacks and campaigns, particularly the ones we’ve seen directed at the province of Quebec and the citizens of Canada who live there.

Peace out. Knit on.