Chantal Hebert asks a question

The widespread sense on Parliament Hill is that a showdown will be averted. But for how long?

And I provide an answer.

Not very long.  This confrontation was manufactured by Harper in an attempt to instigate an election.  If this tempest can be poured into a teapot, Harper will brew up another one.  They will be jonseying for an election until they get a majority or they are defeated.

It has been widely stated that the Conservatives have continued to act like an Opposition Party in government.  Canadians wait and wait for the partisanship to end, the attacks be put aside so that our problems can be tackled.  It is not going to happen as long as Harper is involved.  He will provoke and maintain a crisis atmosphere until there is an election.  Hebert and other columnists are enabling this behaviour.  So are the Opposition by pretending that these are sane people.

We can't afford to continue this pattern.  Pull the plug and form a coalition.  If Ignatieff won't do it, get someone in charge who will.  In just over a week, it will have been 5 months since the election.  We are still within the period in which convention expects the GG to ask the Opposition to form a government.  Even by the standard Ed Schreyer laid out in the "Clark Test".

For some Canadians, the apparently imminent defeat of Mr. Harper's government might evoke memories of Joe Clark's ouster nearly three decades ago. But Stéphane Dion of December, 2008, is not Pierre Trudeau of December, 1979. Mr. Clark was defeated on a budget seven months after the election that brought his Tories to power. He asked Edward Schreyer, then the Governor-General, for a dissolution of Parliament. Mr. Schreyer, quite properly and according to constitutional convention, asked the Liberals, under Pierre Trudeau, whether they could govern with a working majority in the House of Commons. Mr. Trudeau passed, and the Liberals won the ensuing election.

Perhaps there will be some anger out West.  But not as much as the nervous nellies would suggest.  Evidence that the grown-ups are back in charge and are making a sincere attempt to help the country out will salve the wounds of all but the most delirious Conservative supporters.

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