Back to business…? Not Quite Yet

While Canadians get back to work this week, our elected officials will continue to enjoy a vacation that began in September when Stephen Harper sought permission to dissolve parliament.
Since the campaign and subsequent election in October, members of parliament have spent less than three weeks in the House of Commons and they won’t go back to work until late January. This extended vacation has given Canadian politicians and organizations time to breathe and reorganize. On the surface Canadian politics have changed significantly since parliament was prorogued in early December, but up here things have a way of not getting too different too quickly.
The events that unfolded in the closing months of 2008 – the now infamous fiscal update, coalition agreement and decision to prorogue – led to an unprecedented outburst of December decision making. What will undoubtedly be the biggest game changer in the months ahead will be the Liberal Party’s decision to finally unseat the beleaguered Stéphane Dion.
After just over two years as leader, Dion was whisked aside late last month, leaving a trail of questionable decisions and communication failures in his wake on route to becoming the second leader in the history of the Liberal Party not to have held the office of Prime Minister.
One wonders whether he will simply be lost to the pages of history or be forever remembered as an exemplary typification of failed and inept leadership. Harper seemed bent on running the official opposition’s hapless leader into the ground, and in this he was very successful.
Dion’s replacement, a man seemingly teeming with leadership qualities, is the bold Michael Ignatieff, a quick-thinking hard worker who will unquestionably make life a lot tougher on Harper and his government. Ignatieff seems to have what it takes to get his party back on top, but no matter which way you slice it, he’s got a monumental task ahead of him. Interestingly, if Ignatieff does eventually become Prime Minister, the entire continent of North America will be under the dominion of Harvard men: Ignatieff in Canada, Obama in America and Calderon in Mexico.
The Liberal leadership decision and the constitutional crisis have put the Tory government on their heels. Though they managed to hold onto power just barely last month with the help of a little name-calling and some old-fashioned power broking, they sparked a fire under the opposition. Harper, who had so far been able to minimize his missteps, will have to start treading carefully; he’s been forced to backtrack on several elements of his economic plan, which is unfamiliar territory for him. It remains to be seen whether the Tory caucus will return from the break in the mood to govern like a minority and cooperate with the opposition or be more ready than ever to pick a fight.
The most interesting figure to keep an eye on in ’09 will be finance minister Jim Flaherty. Flaherty, who’s long been lingering in between the limelight and the backbenches, is looking to become the first Harper Tory to move up from crony status to become an actual public figure.
Flaherty has made a career out of talking a good game and has gotten off pretty much scot-free. During the election campaign he belittled the Liberals for their plan to set up an economic advisory committee as a response to the economic crisis and accused them of planning to send the country back into deficit. He’s now set up a committee similar to the one proposed by Dion and is talking about deficits in the $30 billion range, quite a change of tune. In politics changing course can be either saintly or sinful, but it is not something one wants to become known for – the lesson here for Flaherty is to be careful how intensely he berates opposition proposals. If the party starts slipping in the polls, Flaherty could end up getting hung out to dry. The finance minister is well aware of this and will be working to prevent it. Already he’s taken a much softer and inclusive tone in his press conferences since parliament was prorogued last month.
Despite the respite, there are still deep divisions in Ottawa. When MPs return later this month there’s no guarantee they will be cooperative or even civil. The budget could just as likely be passed as we could enter into a second round of constitutional turmoil – even an election isn’t impossibility. The one man who will have the most say in how things play out, the guy still running the show, is the Prime minister. No matter what happens between now and then, when parliament resumes in January it will be Harper’s move. All that the rest of us can do now is wait.