It's been an exciting couple of weeks in Canadian politics, and it doesn't look like the action is going to slow down any time soon. When Conservative party leader, Prime Minister Steven Harper received permission from Governor-General Michaelle Jean to postpone parliament until January 26th/09 in order to avoid facing a vote of non-confidence in the Parliament, it appeared he might have dodged a bullet. His popularity had risen in the polls and the Liberal Party, leaders of a proposed coalition government poised to replace him after the non-confidence vote, were starting to turn on themselves over who should lead their party when the house reconvened.
Before the events of the last two weeks or so went down, the Liberal party was just beginning the process of electing a new leader to replace Stephane Dion who had led them to their worst election result in twenty years. Of the three men who had announced their intention to seek the position, two, Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff were considered the front runners, with Igantieff having a slight edge due to his popularity among the Liberal Members of Parliament (MP). Still, in a leadership convention anything can happen and Rae was planning an extensive cross country tour in hopes of convincing those selected as delegates to the convention that he was the man for the job.
However with the very real possibility of the government still going down to defeat when the House reconvenes, Dion was being a considered a liability by even members of his own party in the event of the coalition being called upon to form a government or, even worse, if an election were to be called. One of the reasons that Stephen Harper felt fairly secure in postponing parliament was for that reason. He figured by the time the house re-convened the Liberals would be too busy with picking a new leader to risk defeating him in an election with a lame duck leader. 
The Liberals have called his bluff, and two very intelligent and proud men have put aside their own political ambitions in order to make the Liberals as unified and strong as possible no matter what happens at the end of January 2009. Stephane Dion offered to step down immediately, and Bob Rae has stepped aside to allow Michael Ignatieff to become leader of the party. The party had been discussing ways of holding a speeded up leadership convention, either by having a new leader elected by the Liberal caucus or expanding the vote to include riding association heads (a riding is the equivalent of an electoral district and each riding represents a seat in the House Of Commons) and all candidates from the last election to ensure that all ridings had a say in the matter.
Article comments
1 - Ruvy
This is exciting, Richard? Seeing politicians act responsibly is not exciting - it's a miracle! Did the messiah show up at Liberal party HQ or something? Didn't anybody redirect the guy on the white jackass to the Golden Gate in J-lem? WTF?
Seriously; interesting read. I wouldn't call this "exciting" but it is nice to see that politicians somewhere on the planet can act intelligently....
2 - Richard Marcus
Ruvy
You have to stop for a second and consider that unlike Israel most of the rest of the world doesn't live with the Knesset - for us this is exciting. It's like I said in an early comment - this is the first time I can remember when Canadians have actually been interested in our politics - outside of the reflex swearing at them.
You have to realize that we've only ever had a coalition government once before, and we've never had these exact circumstances play out before at all. It is still possible that we will see a change of government without there being an election called, and if nothing else, the novelty of the circumstances makes it exciting.
I must say though, I agree with you, intelligence from a politician is rare, and should be encouraged anytime its observed, as of course it's still the exception to the rule.