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PARLIAMENT SUSPENDED 'TIL JANUARY

Harper was able to dodge a bullet by convincing Governor General Michaelle Jean to suspend Parliament until the new year. The coalition deal struck by the Liberals and the NDP, supported by the Bloc, will be unable to force a non-confidence vote anytime soon to bring down the Conservative minority and form a coalition government with outgoing Liberal leader Stephane Dion as Prime Minister.
On Wednesday night Harper issued a national address broadcast on TV to the country vowing to stop the coalition at all costs. His message was followed by responses from the other party leaders on Harper's comments. The video of Liberal leader Dion was not only late going to air but it was of very poor quality prompting remarks of just how bad things are getting for the Liberal party. Since 2006 the Liberals have gone through two federal elections, a leadership race and are headed into another so they are getting low on financial support. This may be part of the reason they opposed the recently unveiled Conservative fiscal update from Finance Minister Jim Flaherty which included decreases to party financial support.
Harper has bought himself some time to figure out how to get himself out of this mess. Some of the possibilities would include announcing the budget early in January as soon as Parliament resumes so he would gain support against the coalition. As soon as Harper made the announcement that Parliament would be suspended there have already been many Liberal MPs stating that the coalition won't last until January and there were many opposed to it from the beginning. They stated that it shows just how bad Dion's leadership is for this party. The Liberals still plan to have their leadership convention in early May with Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff as the frontrunners.
Since the coalition between the Liberals and the NDP was announced by Layton and Dion the Conservatives have seen considerable increases in their support. They brought in 37.6% of the popular vote during the federal election on Oct. 14th and most polls are showing the Conservatives up as high as 44% in recent days, enough for a majority government if there was another election.
Now that this issue has been at least put to rest for a month it will be interesting to see what happens when it all starts back up again in January. Will the coalition still exist? How strong will it be? Will we be headed back to the polls for another election? Only time will tell.
- DCM

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