Our Cowardly Governor-General

Ex G.G. Michaelle Jean agreed to prorogue Parliament in December, 2008 apparently because she was intimidated by our thug prime minister, Stephen Harper, and feared that the Tory slime machine would subvert Canadian democracy if she refused.

Constitutional scholar Peter Russell told OntarioNewsWatch.com this week that weighing on Ms. Jean’s mind at the time was the likelihood the Tories – had they lost office – would have poisoned confidence in the coalition government through a PR campaign framing the change as an illegitimate transfer of power.

The Conservatives, he told the Ontario-based news website, “have a huge publicity machine” at their fingertips.

“If a ‘no’ had come out of Rideau Hall and an attack launched on a Dion-Layton coalition that said we’ve had a coup d’etat in Canada,” he said, “we would have been there in the headlines of the world like Greece. [That’s] not very good for the country in any which way.”

As is already known, Ms. Jean also extracted pledges from Mr. Harper at the time: that he would bring back Parliament shortly and produce a budget to win sufficient support in the Commons.

Asked why she ultimately consented to Mr. Harper’s request, Mr. Russell said: “I think her reasons were that parliamentary democracy is going to be protected sufficiently to avoid a dangerous and dreadful crisis by giving an affirmative answer to the Prime Minister.”

Reached Monday by The Globe and Mail, Mr. Russell said he believes Ms. Jean was concerned about a Conservative backlash that could generate a crisis of confidence in Canada’s political system. “My best guess was that she was,” he said.

If Russell is even remotely correct then our prime monster flat out bullied the G.G. into capitulating to his demands to protect Canada from this animal and his machine.   Did she believe that really helped Canada?

ed.  This story came out last week but I sat on it because I wasn't sure what to make of it.  I'm still uncertain what it says of Michaelle Jean although I'm clear what it says of Steve Harper.

Your Excellency, If You Really Want to Apologize...

Our soon-to-be-lapsed Governor General is in Rwanda where she got all gushy and apologized for Canada's failure to intervene during the 1994 genocide there. Ms. Jean needs to think straight. You can only fail to intervene if you have the means to intervene and the authority to intervene.

We long ago vested the power to decide when to act militarily to the United Nations Security Council. Call it an "end to Armageddon" thing. Unfortunately both Britain and the United States saw to it that the Security Council did nothing for Rwanda. Clinton later apologized for his country turning its back on Rwanda and he had some real atoning to do.

Canada? Hardly. Just like they have been in Afghanistan for the past eight years, the Canadian military was largely overcommitted back in 1994 in other hellholes that we call the Balkans. Even if we'd been asked to intervene we lacked the means. So maybe Her Excellency should apologize for the United Nations - except she lacks the authority.

But wait, there's more. Ms. Jean just whipped through the Democratic Republic of Congo where she asked the authorities to stop raping the womenfolk. If she had a hankering for apologizing maybe she could have dropped a mea culpa or two there because the West has sat on its hands for a decade while five million Congolese were butchered. Yeah, that's right, 5,000,000 (don't worry, they're mainly zeroes) while we sat in Afghanistan with our fingers up our arses propping up a thug named Hamid Karzai, babysitting their unresolved civil war and keeping Afghanistan safe for the corrupt government, brutal warlords and opium kingpins.

I just cannot stomach that woman much longer. The sooner she's out of Rideau Hall the better.

Her Excellency, Lady Foot In Mouth, Does It Again!

Our erstwhile Governor General has done it again. Governor General Michaelle Jean has apologized to Rwandans for Canada's "inaction" during the 1994 genocide there.

What gives this frivolous idiot reason to believe she has the right to issue apologies on behalf of Canada? Oh that's right, in her curious little mind, she gets herself confused with our Head of State who, the last time I checked, was the Queen.

Just what action did she think Canada would have been capable of taking in Rwanda in 1994? Does she believe it was within our power to send phantom divisions of troops racing over there to separate Hutu from Tutsi? Maybe she thinks Canada held a seat on the Security Council in 1994 (we didn't). Maybe she can't get it through her pointy little head that only the Security Council could have acted and both the United States and Britain blocked the notion.

I sure as hell hope this buffoon doesn't let the front door of Rideau Hall hit her on the ass on her way out. Thinking of just how far she has lowered the bar for Governors General, maybe William Shatner wouldn't be all that bad a pick after all.

At Least She's Not Sitting In His Lap

National Post released this delightful photo of the Governor General and Furious Leader yucking it up moments before Madame Jean read today's Throne Speech. It sounded like 10-minutes of standard Harper drivel.

Aiding and Abetting the Mugging of Parliament

Hey, Your Excellency, didja hear the news? Canada lost 70,600 jobs last month, the worst drop in a quarter century. The auto industry is on the brink of collapse and needs parliament's urgent attention. Ontario is heading into the tank. Thank God we've got a parliament geared up to respond to this emergency. Oh, what's that? We don't? They've been locked out of the House of Commons? Oh, who did that? The Governor-General? Can she do that? What's that you say? No one knows why she did it and she's not talking? Say what? No parliament until when? The end of January, next year? Are you serious?

She shut down parliament because Steve asked her to save his skin? She didn't even talk to the opposition leaders about it? She figured that the 62% of Canadians who voted for someone else don't need a voice in parliament, Steve can reign as our unelected monarch? Really?

The questions answer themselves. Put together all the answers and you have a Governor General who recklessly wielded powers in a way that usurped Canadian parliamentary democracy. I don't think she's ignorant of the importance of our democracy and how it's been crafted over these several centuries. I guess she felt her view, informed only by the guy in the crosshairs, was enough that she didn't even need to hear from the opposition about it.

Michaelle Jean has no place occupying Rideau Hall.

I've always been ambivalent about Canada's constitutional monarchy - until now. Back then I thought the GG had a role to play in removing abusive and illegitimate governments. I just didn't imagine the Queen's representative would dream of using her regal powers to prop up an abusive and illegitimate government.

Parliament has been mugged and Harper needed Madame Jean to collaborate with him to pull it off. He went to her acknowledging that he had lost what every prime minister cannot purport to govern without - the confidence of the House of Commons. He knew it, she knew it. She also knew that our economy is approaching freefall and we cannot do without a working parliament at this critical juncture. Despite everything she knew, she acted capriciously, perhaps even contumaciously.

I was a lukewarm supporter of our constitutional monarchy until yesterday when monarchy chose to trample our constitutional democracy. Now I can't wait to see that whole institution abolished and the smell of it purged from my country.