But only the Canadian army could screw up public relations to this level.  First there is the waste of taxpayer dollars to convince us that Afghanistan is a great and noble cause.  I guess this incident means that plan is history.   It gets worse.  This was a female soldier which adds to the public relations fiasco.   But wait there is more, she was French serving with the Royal 22nd (Van Doos).    I can’t wait to see reaction in the French sovereigntist press.  Who is in charge of propaganda at National Defence Headquarters, Gilligan?  In its imperious ineptitude, they have managed to offend just about every group one can think of.  I am surprised they didn’t wait until it was a Black French woman with autism to pull this boner.  I mean let’s piss everyone off at once and get it over with. 

Don’t forget taxpayers.  The part of this story that has raised no comment as yet that I can find is that the governor-general and minister of defense met the coffin at CFB Trenton.  Hold on.  Think about this.  The coffin was on the ground for three hours in Ottawa.  Ottawa is where the governor-general lives and the minister of defense works (and lives while he is working, if he works, I don’t know).  So, let me get this straight.  The minister and governor-general and the coffin all travelled at taxpayers expense to Trenton for what exactly, a photo-op?  Did they all travel together?  You can drive from Ottawa to Trenton in less than 3 hours maybe one of them could have made room in the back seat.  Why do they even have to be there?  Maybe the prime minister should be there too.  Hell bring the whole freaking parliament.  They love nothing better than a free trip.  Here’s a thought.  Take the coffin home, to the family.  Shouldn’t they be the priority not protocol?  Do we need an official “Death Camp”?

Military observers (cheerleaders) commented to news outlets that it was a minor controversy being blown out of proportion.  I tend to agree.  It was an insensitive decision but in overall terms the coverage in the mainstream press is probably causing more grief to the family than the incident itself.  Military observers are worried though about their little traditions and customs being broken such as failure to lower the flags while the plane was on the ground in Ottawa.  If it was me in the coffin they could shove the flag where the sun don’t shine for all I would care.  Actually when I die the flags over municipal buildings in my town will be lowered to half mast because I once served on city council.   Honestly, if they forget I couldn’t care less.  I would imagine the whole dead thing will be bothering me more at that moment. 

Where I differ from the hotties with the olive drab pompoms is, if you make out that she was a hero, you can’t say this is a minor controversy.  Heroes are a special category of people or sandwiches if you come from New York.  Therefore this would be by definition a serious controversy.  But she wasn’t a hero.  She was a young woman with her whole life before her who died under a foreign sky for geopolitical reasons she never fully understood.  This is a tragedy; not the fall of Agamemnon.  Calling her a hero implies her death was necessary; it served a greater good.  That may assuage the consciences of the political masters who threw her life on the dust heap of history.  But it will never fill the empty chair at family gatherings or give her parents grandchildren.  Maybe if Canadians would come to grips with that we might have fewer tragedies and the Canadian military would have fewer opportunities to trip over its own braid.

I stand by my original conclusion that the governor-general has made an improper decision.  She interfered with the proper processes of parliament.  How can we have responsible government with a prime minister who does not enjoy the confidence of the House?  My conclusion is based on something that until now I did not think was a matter of debate: i.e. that the governor-general is responsible to the will of parliament.  The will of parliament in this case was publicly known.  Mr. Harper would lose a confidence motion if put to the House.  There was a party leader who did enjoy the confidence of the House.  If Governor-General Jean wanted to ascertain the will of parliament for herself, she simply had to ask Mr. Harper to stand for a vote of confidence.  At that point she would have the decision of whether to dissolve parliament or accept Mr. Dion’s offer to form a government.  The appropriate thing for her to do then would be to allow Mr. Dion to attempt to govern.  So unless someone can tell me that the governor-general is not responsible to parliament, I don’t see how they can make a credible argument that the governor-general did the appropriate thing.  If she is not responsible to parliament then who is she responsible to?

Also I know that some of my colleagues do not take this breech as seriously as I do.  A constitution is more than a dusty old bunch of documents.  It is the fabric upon which a society is built.  Once rent it may never be fully repaired.  Already this whole incident is raising the ugly divisions which percolate just under the surface of our society:  East vs. West, French vs. English.  If we cannot abide by the rules that we have set in place then it is time to change them.  I see this as an error in the 1982 patriation.  We should then have included clearer indication of the role of the governor-general and how she should react to given circumstances.  Of course as I have already said, I had assumed that the fact that she was responsible to parliament was a clear given.  I guess I was wrong about that.  

So I take this seriously and I stand by my original analysis until someone can prove my premises incorrect.  I also believe in doing something rather than sitting back and accepting whatever the powers that be decide.  Canadian’s legendary quiescence is no service to our country at this point.  And I have never been much of a quiescent type. 

So certainly feel free to disagree with me.  I don’t take stands because they are popular, I take stands because I believe in them.

If nothing is done in response to this situation it undermines the credibility of the entire constitution.  A constitution is just a legal charter or contract.  Some parts are written in a special document and other parts are scattered through other documents and court decisions.  Just like a contract you might sign to buy a house or obtain employment, the rules or conditions specified within must be observed.  Now if I violate a condition of say an employment contract, said contract becomes null and void.  Once I violate one part without sanction, why would I not violate other areas and expect, based on precedent, to avoid sanction?  This is what has happened.  The Supreme Court constitutional decision on conditions for Quebec separation is now void.  The constitution no longer exists.  The Charter of Rights and Freedoms no longer applies because it is part of the constitution which no longer has authority.  These examples may sound far fetched and I don’t expect Quebec to leave today or the RCMP to start violating your Charter rights (at least no more than they do already).  My point here is to drive home that this is serious and has consequences beyond the immediate situation. 

This is the first time that I am aware of since 1926 that a sitting prime minister has made an inappropriate request of a governor-general.  In that case Lord Julian Byng had the strength of character to fulfill his responsibilities and deny the request.  Apparently Michaël Jean does not. 

But who has the power to remove a governor-general?  Certainly, as a representative of the Crown, Elizabeth should have the authority to say I would like someone else to represent me.  Elizabeth is the Queen of Canada (among her guzillion titles).  We are a constitutional monarchy.  Therefore, I suppose we could ask Elizabeth herself to overturn the ruling of her representative.  That is not going to happen.  The British Crown, while nominally our Head of State, is not about to crawl into this can of worms.  The next question then is can the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court remove Jean from office?  I don’t know.  That question will have to be answered by a constitutional scholar of much greater expertise than me. 

Still, something must be done, if we wish to maintain self-respect as an independent state.  Our spineless news media will be of no help as they are already trying to downplay this (under command of their Conservative-buying corporate bosses no doubt).  Since the beginning, through innuendo and suggestion, they have been convincing Canadians that the opposition parties were doing something, if not illegal, then unethical and certainly sleazy.  They have consistently echoed the Conservative assertion that the opposition only coalesced around the cuts to political party funding in the economic statement tabled in the House.  I understand the Conservatives saying that and I don’t expect them to prove it.  It is partisan rhetoric which is equalled by the other side, fair enough.  But if the laughingly self-described objective media are going to print it or broadcast it, then they should have to prove it.  At this point there has been no such tendering of evidence to the public. 

So as everything else it is left up to you and me.  What can we do?  Freedom and democracy are always fought and struggled for from below as John Pilger said in his speech on “Freedom This Time”, (his new book).  It is up to us.  Do we stand up for the rules and attempt to make things right?  Or do we sit back and accept whatever happens?  If we do the former as the news media seems to want us to do we are saying that ours is not a serious country; Canada is a toy, a Disney production, the little country that could; our politics are not serious.  If that is the case, if that is what Canadians feel, then stop the pretense and let’s apply for annexation by the United States.  I can think of nothing more loathesome to me than being an American except being a citizen of a national joke.  At least Americans take their politics seriously.  You know there was an old Russian saying that a peasant did not care who was in the Kremlin as long as he had his vodka and a woman.  So I guess that kind of describes most Canadians too.  You are not going to lose your job tomorrow (and hell next week is so far off) so the case of beer is safely in the fridge for this weekend and I am sure you can all find some warm company (even if some of you have to blow her up first).  So hey there has to be something better on TV than all this political crap.  Well I want you to remember these thoughts when they are loading you onto the train to the gulag in Nunavut like so many Russians or you are watching your entire family being murdered like so many Ukranians.  That’s right, don’t worry about your rights.  If you ignore them they will go away (actually most already have gone with silence from our intrepid media)

But me?  Here is what I am going to do.  Tonight I will write 3 letters.  One to Michaëlle Jean requesting that she do the honourable thing and resign.  The second letter will be to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to request the Court to intervene if it has the power.  The third letter will be to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to request that she remove her representative at once and reverse her erroneous decision.  Maybe, probably, nothing will come of it.  Who the hell am I?  A nobody prof at a small college in the backwaters of Ontario.  But at least I will have done something.  Flo Kennedy once said the worst thing you can do is sit on your ass.  So the question is do you want to stand up with the crackpots like me and do something or would you rather spend tonight nursing a new hemorrhoid?  Your choice.

So what comes next?  The Liberals and NDP are talking coalition.  They would still need the support of the Bloc Quebecois in order to govern but the Bloc, at least at this point, will not be a part of the coalition government.  The Conservatives are going to argue, if it comes to that, that a coalition is unconstitutional and that the governor-general should call an election instead.  Most Canadians are unaware that nothing of our governing system is in the Constitution.  The only vague reference in CA1867 (formerly the British North America Act) is in the preamble where is mentions forming a government similar in kind to that of Great Britain.  Our current governing system does reflect, in its basic structures, the Westminister model of government.  The prime minister was not even mentioned in the Constitution until the 1982 amendment.  So what Mr. Harper is hanging his hat on is something called constitutional conventions.  These are unwritten bits of the constitution.  A constitutional convention is another way of saying tradition.  Those practices that have arisen and stood the test of time are understood as constitutional by the courts.  It is equal to the precedent concept.  While the courts do recognize them, it doesn’t mean that they can’t be overruled if it seems that they have outlived their usefulness or are in some way injurious to the society.  They are much easier to change than anything that is actually written into the constitutional documents. 

Are there precendents?  The closest would be the Liberal-NDP Accord in the Ontario provincial legislature in 1985.  This was not a coalition.  In exchange for the passage of specific legislation, the NDP committed to not defeat the government on a confidence motion for two years.  At the time the Conservatives held the most seats in the legislature but were finding it impossible to govern as a minority.  When Frank Miller resigned as premiere, David Peterson, with the Accord in hand, presented the lieutenant-governor with the option of allowing him to form a government, thus avoiding an election so soon on the heels of the last.  The other precedent that comes to mind is the Union Government of 1917 but in that case the coalition was arranged prior to the election and ran as such.  There are other examples of deals between parties to support a minority government such as the ‘Shopping List’ presented by the NDP to the Conservatives and Liberals in 1972 (for those of you who don’t remember or are too young to remember the Liberals won the bidding).  So all in all while there is no direct precedent, a federal coalition government in no way contridicts what has gone before.  We have a history of cooperative efforts between parties and a coalition would be just another level up. 

It would create a greater constitutional crisis for Canada if the governor-general were to deny the request of the Liberals to form a coalition.  Another fact that Canadians don’t fully understand is that we, the people, do not elect the prime minister.  We elect a person in our riding.  That person belongs to a specific party in most cases (leaving independents aside for the moment).  When the seat count is added up the party with the most seats usually forms the government.  That’s right, usually.  While there is not an actual vote for prime minister the House of Commons nonetheless does make the choice.  A prime minister remains in office as long as she/he retains the confidence of the House.  At any moment, whether in majority or minority, if a prime minister loses on a confidence vote she/he must resign.  Of course this has never happened in a majority situation in Canada and is not likely to.  But it is a real possibility in minority.  On the other hand, if a party leader can provide proof that they would enjoy the confidence of the House, the governor-general would be hard pressed to deny them the opportunity.  This is the situation which appears to be forming up.  Therefore, if Stephane Dion (providing he is still leading the Liberal Party) approaches Governor-General Michaëlle Jean and proposes a coalition government with the NDP supported by the Bloc with all parties in agreement, her only answer can be to give him the opportunity. 

Is all this hullabaloo necessary?  Probably not but it was inevitable.  Stephen Harper had shown himself incapable of working in a minority situation in the last parliament when he had even fewer seats.  Now with the scent of majority in his nose there would be no dealing with him at all.  Stephen is one of those people whose look matches their personality.  He really is just as anal as he looks.  Hell you couldn’t pull a needle out of his butt with a backhoe.  Anal retentive people tend to be control freaks unable to compromise and successful minority governments are all about compromise.  And in the end that is what a democracy should be. 

We must wait to see how this all plays out.  The Conservatives may find a compromise or the opposition parties may get cold feet before the December 8 vote in the House of Commons and all this speculation will be for naught.