Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper won a rare suspension of Parliament on Thursday, managing to avoid being ousted by opposition parties angry over the minority Conservative government’s economic plans and an attempt to cut off party financing. Governor General Michaelle Jean — the representative of Queen Elizabeth, Canada’s head of state — agreed to Harper’s request to shut down Parliament until Jan 26.
Parliament was reconvened just weeks ago after the October 14 election. Harper’s request for suspension was unprecedented. No prime minister had asked for Parliament to be suspended to avoid a confidence vote in the House of Commons. Such a vote had been set for Monday and the Conservatives almost certainly would have lost it, and faced the possibility of being replaced by a coalition of opposition parties.
After a two-hour meeting with the governor general, Harper reaffirmed his promise to present a budget on Jan 27 and called on the opposition to work with the government over the next few weeks to tackle the effects of the global financial crisis. “Today’s decision will give us an opportunity — and I’m talking about all the parties — to focus on the economy and to work together,” he told reporters. The opposition Liberals, New Democrats and the separatist Bloc Quebecois — all to the left of the Conservatives — had signed a deal to defeat the Conservatives and put forward a Liberal-New Democrat coalition to form a new government. The Bloc, which wants to take French-speaking Quebec out of Canada, pledged to back the coalition’s budgets and general policy direction. The governor general’s role in government, as representative of the Crown, is largely ceremonial, though she has the final word on constitutional matters. Should the government be defeated in a confidence vote, she would decide whether to call a new election or allow the opposition to form a coalition government.
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