Thursday, January 28, 2010

Michael Ignatieff: "Prorogation is way above my pay grade"

Aside from the fact that Ignatieff stole the line from Obama, whose popularity has dropped like a stone, what else has changed between the time that he made that statement back in June 2009 and this past Monday that now makes him think he is a constitutional expert?

Michael Ignatieff: " I can't give you the answer that you want, which is to do away with prorogation, because it is way above my pay grade and requires constitutional lawyers and other fancy people"

Watch the video.





IMHO nothing has changed other than he smells an opportunity. An opportunity to get rid of the one thing that stood in way of the coalitions grab for power, prorogation, handcuffing every future PM of this great land in the process. Absolutely amazing! Here we have a guy who wants to permanently change the rules on system that has worked for 142 years and yet he does not even have the courage to face the voters in the polls before trying to do so.


How damn desperate, partisan and self-serving must you be to try and limit a power today that may be needed by a PM in a future where prorogation may be the only method that could be used to avert a potential nation destroying crisis. Talk about being short sighted.


Thankfully our constitution and rules of governance will not allow Ignatieff and his coalition buddies to change anything that really matters.



Spector on why Ignatieff's lame and dangerous proposals will not fly:


Benoit Pelletier, a constitutional expert and former Quebec minister of intergovernmental relations, argues that “amending the rules of the House or passing legislation would not be enough to force the Governor-General to ignore the wishes of a prime minister calling for a prorogation.

"It’s legitimate to try [to limit a prime minister’s power], but the possibility of blocking a prorogation is not obvious,” said the law professor at the University of Ottawa.

Mr. Pelletier said that prorogation is an element of the country’s political system and has a tacit constitutional recognition.

“I think the Governor-General would obey the prime minister,”

A view echoed, in a report by CP that Bloc whip Michel Guimond says “the Bloc supports in principle efforts to impose constraints on the prime minister’s power to prorogue. But he said the party has been advised by legal experts that a constitutional amendment, approved by the provinces, is the only way to go about it….

He doubted there’s much appetite for reopening the constitutional can of worms.

“In principle, we are not against the solutions proposed by the two other parties but we know that we must be realistic,” Guimond said in an interview.



Even the Bloc know the reality on this, but unlike Ignatieff, most Bloc MP's have been in Canada long enough to know how our system works.

13 comments:

maryT said...

I still think this group of coalition coup planners had something planned for after Jan 25 and the PM found out, just like last time.
Maybe we have to tell the cdn people about other dictators who have seized power, and turned the country into a wasteland while they enlarged their bank accounts. But, the liberals have a history of stealing tax dollars, think what they could do with unlimited power to stop them.
It must be very embarrasing for the likes of Hedy, Ujaal, Iggy and others to know that canadians will never elect them so they must seize power any way then can.

skuleman said...

If they did try to force a change it seems that would require re-opening the constitution. I would argue that if the constitution is re-opened, then every facet of it must also be on the table:
Senate reform
equal representation by population
equalization payments
multiculturalism
bilingualism
property rights
human rights
etc, etc

It's likely that Ontario and the Maritimes would give into anything that Quebec wanted, but I would hope that Nfld might show some cojones as they are getting screwed by Quebec already. If the west and territories held firm then either no changes can be made or we do re-open all of the above.

CanadianSense said...

Many of us have been thinking the Plan B was to deal with the next loss by the coalition.

Eliminate or build a groundswell against the use of prorogue as some dirty or undemmocratic trick.

With the help of the media, the coalition parties are trying to dumb down the debate in regards to our constitution for the sake of reforming the coalition.

Anonymous said...

"But, the liberals have a history of stealing tax dollars"

MaryT

I recall reading somewhere (I think on BT) that it was illegal under the rules of parliament for a government in power to divulge any evidence of wrongdoing by a previous government that it discovered because of the advantage of being in power.

I find it hard to believe there wasn't more evidence of what went on in AdScam, The Gun Registry, the DND/IT Scam, etc. If the above is true then it would explain why the tories haven't been able to do anything about all the liberal boondoggles, and why there aren't a lot more people in jail.

As for "stealing tax dollars", its not just the liberals. Look at the NDP governments we've had in the provinces.

wilson said...

Spector agrees:

Mr. Ignatieff’s and Mr. Duceppe’s hidden prorogation agendas

http://www.members.shaw.ca/nspector4/iggduceppe.htm

I think you are right Mary,
PMSH could have prorogued Parliament just before the Xmas recess was over,
but they must have got wind of somne proceedural trick the Opps were going to use while PMSH was out of the country,..

wilson said...

Good catch AA.
Did yah send this 'above my paygrade' clip to the CPC war room?

frmgrl said...

Great video, AA. I agree with wilson, you should send this to the CPC war room.

Jen said...

Now that layton took over the liberal party and their(liberal) good for nothing washed out still in 90s media, he can spin his Socialist ideas without once being criticized by the stale brain media reporters. or else, he will take the greatest pleasure exposing them and their secret agendas to the public.

Ardvark said...

The thing that strikes me was Ignateiff's answer to the question on the coalition where he says it MAY have happened if his rules would have been in place and then blows it off as if it does not really matter.

The arrogance of this man is stunning. He knows his rules would have allowed the coalition to take over, he also knows the damage it would have caused, but lets not talk about that.

The war room you say; sure I have them on speed dial. ;)

Seriously, I do believe they already have the comments.

Ardvark said...

And I should add that so now does CTV and CBC both have the comments, as both of which have been visiting me here numerous times over the last few days.

Hi Kady =)

Calgary Junkie said...

Iggy was talking to the Lib faithful in a small southern Ontario town this summer (sorry, I can't remember the name and the video clip is no longer in liberal.ca). He was asked a question about the Equalization Program. And he gave the same kind of "I don't have a clue" answer. The audience laughed.

In a recent scrum, a Quebec reporter asked Iggy about a federal maintenance contract that was being taken away from Quebec. This was big news in Quebec, yet Iggy said he hadn't heard about it ! And will get back to her.

This is maybe Iggy's biggest achilles heels--he doesn't understand the federal files and issues. Certainly nowhere near Harper's level. And that ignorance will become painfully obvious during the intense scrutiny of an election campaign.

He won't have Dion's excuses of poor hearing and language skills.

Ardvark said...

I am not sure if he does not know or no longer bothers to care. After all he was promised that he would be PM by now.

Anonymous said...

The guy really quite moronic isn't he?

I think the PM still has lots of cards to deal. Don't forget Harper's team were expecting and preparing for Iffy when the LPOC elected Dion.
They've likely got plenty and are saving it to use in a campaign.

Stephen Taylor's got a new post us that's worth a read.