So . . . the future of the Canadian parliament is in the hands of . . . the Queen's representative?

[LSdemocrat]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081202.wPOLdiscussion1203/BNStory/politics/home

"Canada's politicians are on the verge of putting Governor-General Michaëlle Jean in an extremely unenviable position, forcing our non-partisan vice-regal representative to set a precedent in the middle of a political mess," historian and constitutional expert Bob Beal writes in this online-exclusive explanatory piece.

. . .

"If the House decides it does not have confidence in the present government, the Governor-General will have to wonder if the House might have confidence in a different government drawn from the same House. The opposition parties have attempted to address that point with their agreement and the letter they have written to Ms. Jean.

. . .

"Accepting the prime minister's advice for dissolution and an election in the present situation is also a possible, and proper, use of the prerogative. But that would establish a precedent, so far unknown, of the Crown interfering in the work of a newly elected House when it seems possible a new prime minister might be able to command the confidence of the House.

"The current Prime Minister could ask the Governor-General to prorogue this session of Parliament, to delay the work of the House until the New Year, an exercise of the Crown's reserve powers. That request would raise questions that have never been raised before. It seems a murkier situation than a request for dissolution would be."

Is this story generating any discussion in British political circles? Any sort of reconsideration of the monarchy vis-a-vis the Commonwealth?

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Hardly any coverage here at all

The Times doesn't seem to have printed a word about it; neither does The Independent; the Daily Telegraph has managed a couple of short news pieces (without a specific reporter's name on - I suspect they don't have a Canadian correspondent, and just put it together from wire reports); The Guardian has had 1 report, and 1 commentary piece. The BBC has had pieces online, but I haven't noticed it mentioned on radio or TV (I might have missed brief mentions, I suppose).

Britain manages to almost completely ignore Canadian politics. In addition to the sparse coverage, none of the top 3 (in traffic) political blogs has mentioned Canada at all (Guido Fawkes, Iain Dale, or Liberal Conspiracy - and while the 1st 2 are RWers who have their heads stuck up their arse, the 3rd is properly internationalist - always covers the US in detail) - either for the elections a couple of months ago, or for the current struggle. When the Queen's oldest grandchild married a Canadian, it wasn't widely covered here. Probably the last time Canada got significant coverage here was the Quebec independence vote. When you consider the BBC had wall-to-wall coverage of the US elections, with, I'd guess, hundreds of employees over there, and the papers were all mad for it too, it's rather poor.

I suspect if you asked our MPs to name the Canadian PM and opposition leader(s), they'd overwhelmingly fail. But the politicians here, or we citizens, don't have any say on the monarch's relationship with the Commonwealth countries - if a country wants to keep her as head of state, or ditch her, that's up to them. As far as what the Governor-General decides to do, I have no idea whether the Queen will be involved, or if she'll leave it entirely up to Jean - since the Queen's been at this for 56 years, it'd be worth Jean asking her for advice, I'd think. She can point to episodes of minority government in the UK, and to what happened in Australia when the G-G decided the PM had to go, back in the 70s.

[non sociopath skin]

2. Quite detailed and thorough treatment of the issue on the Guardian site now ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/04/stephen-harper-canada-prime-minister

The Skin

[T_i_B]

5. There has been more coverage of this in the mainstream press today.

I wouldn't go looking on the UK blogs for this story though. It's still almost all Damien Green with a side helping of whatever bloggers are up to on twitter from what I can see.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

3. scary stuff

can you imagine the crap that would hit the fan if a British PM did what Harper just did?

[Albus]

4. probably get away with it.

[Matilda]

6. Australia was in this position in 1975,

when the unelected representative of a foreign head-of-state dismissed
our elected prime minister, Gough Whitlam.

November 11, 1975, was the day I became an Australian Republican. No
disrespect to HM, who's a dedicated and conscientious woman, but no
country in modern times should be in this position.

It's time for all us colonials to stand on our own feet.