Random thoughts on the current silly "crisis" in Canadian federal politics

• Do you think the opposition parties could defeat the government in a vote anyway? The Tories would just have to snag a handful of votes from a couple of maverick opposition MPs (including the 2 independent MPs).
• Getting rid of the per-vote party subsidy is something that I wholeheartedly agree with; however, it would have been nice if it had been in the Conservative election platform. I think it makes it at least somewhat defensible to defeat the government when they're trying to pass through something they didn't really get a mandate for. An alternative: Introduce separate legislation that would phase out the per-vote subsidy after 2-3 years. This would give the other parties a fair chance to remember how to fundraise again. (And the Bloc can just fuck right off anyway.)
  
• The Tories would be better able to defend their avoidance of deficit spending in the mini-budget if Harper hadn't been flip-flopping like a Pacific salmon out of its bucket on the issue of deficits over the past several weeks.
  
• Having said that, I don't think it's defensible to defeat the government on the other aspects of the economic update alone. The Conservatives have won a mandate to be the government, and they ran on an election platform of a cautious, conservative fiscal approach in a difficult economy. They have the right to implement that approach.
• It seems stupid anyway to think it's imperative to start shovelling around money we don't have on random things just for the sake of wanting to look like invoking decisive action. Things aren't that bad yet, and it's not clear what's going to happen next anyway. Why panic?
• I do find it distasteful that Harper has now postponed the "opposition days" to put off any potential confidence vote. I sure as hell didn't like it when PM PM pulled the same stunt in 2005. I think Harper should say, "We're doing what we think is right, and if we don't have the confidence of the House, I want to know right now. Have at 'er."
• Regarding the following sequence of events: (1) Government defeated on confidence motion (2) GG refuses new election and invites opposition party(s) to try to form a governement (3) Opposition coalition gaining the confidence of the House; I put odds of this happening at about 5% probability or less.
  
• The Liberals just don't know what the hell to do with themselves when they're not in power, do they?
• The opposition parties are probably just playing chicken as well, anyway.
  
• Krankor made me put this in bullet form instead of writing a well thought out essay.