The Great White North

The drama surrounding attempts by Canadian PM Paul Martin to hang on to power
by ignoring a no confidence vote and then offering a Conservative oppositionist
a Cabinet post to switch sides has taken an dramatic turn. Conservative
Canadian MP Gurmant Grewal tape recorded an attempt by the Prime Minister's
chief of staff, Tim Murphy to bribe him to change his vote. Andrew
Coyne highlights some snippets of the recorded conversation which are best
heard against the background of squeezebox music playing  'Speak softly, love, so no one hears us but the sky.
...'

Murphy: "if anybody is asked the question, 'Well is there a deal?' and
you say, 'No.' Well you want that to be the truth. ... So you didn't
approach. We didn't approach."

A recent Belmont
Club post noted that 'victories' won by the Left with these tactics were
more properly understood as acts of desperation by those who feared their long
term decline, as if in slipping from the pinnacle, they despaired of ever
regaining it again.

The survival of Paul Martin's government, shaken by scandal after scandal,
has been bought at the price of violating the spirit of the Westminister
system by ignoring what was effectively a vote of no-confidence until
they could bribe someone to cross the aisle to square the count. Martin
survived but only by bending the rulebook. A Canadian conservative victory
without Martin's shennanigans would have been an unremarkable and narrow
electoral triumph. But the Liberal Party of Canada's actions now mean that the
issues dividing political factions in the Great White North are fundamental.
By demonstrating a determination to hold on to power at all costs Martin is
increasing the likelihood of a radical, rather than an incremental solution to
the Canadian crisis.

Mark Steyn has more in his article A
Constitutional Coup

In the forthcoming Western Standard , I make the point that “the big flaw
at the heart of the Westminster system is that in order to function as
intended – by codes and conventions – it depends on a certain modesty and
circumspection from the political class.” Perhaps it was always a long shot
to expect a man as hollow as Paul Martin to understand that. ... But the fact
remains: by any understanding of our system of government, if the effect of
“an extra week’s delay” is to maintain themselves in power by one vote
they otherwise would not have had, it’s hard to see this as anything other
than a constitutional coup. Like Robert Mugabe, Paul Martin has simply
declared that the constitution is whatever he says it is.

What characterizes much of the Left today as exemplified by behavior from
George Galloway to Paul Martin is the increasing necessity to maintain their
position By Any Means Necessary. While that is dangerous and infuriating, it is
a reliable indicator that they have lost control of the system. Things just
aren't working the way they used to. And that, despite everything, is cause for
hope.