So Jack Layton - a man who has tried to launch a revolution in Canadian politics with his facial hair - has decided that he doesn’t have confidence in the government, giving Stephen Harper the votes he needs to bring the Martin government down. Layton has said that if a motion were on the table, the NDP would vote against the government.

So Stephen Harper - who could put such a motion on the table on November 15th - has said that he won’t do so, and that he’ll wait for Mr. Layton to put the motion out.

Huh?

The farther away we get from Gomery, the lower Stephen Harper’s chances are of forming government. I’ve written before about why I think it’s unlikely that he will in any case, but does this mean that he feels the same way - that is to say: does Stephen Harper finally realize Canadians are afraid of the Big Bad Right?

I doubt it.

I think that Harper just doesn’t want to get blamed for calling a Christmas election, and he’s afraid to pull the trigger as a result. We’ll likely have to wait until January to go the polls.

It would makes sense for Harper to trigger this thing to coincide with the release of the next phase of Gomery’s report. It’ll give him a big document to hold up and drum a finger on, even if it says the same things as the current one. The media loves fresh meat, as does a well run campaign team. Regretably, the former seems unlikely to support the Conservatives and the latter doesn’t exist in the party.

I still don’t see anything happening here other than another shaky Martin minority, and a bit more fuel thrown on the Bloq Quebecois’ referendum fire as a result.

Posted by skooter at 6:10 PM This entry is filed under Politics.