confidence is an overrated word...

Machiavelli, the father of all lobbyists...

Yesterday featured one of those moments in our nation's political life that will surely be enshrined in a future iteration of Canada: A People's History - the day a Canadian government was voted down but didn't fall...Of course, strictly speaking, the vote that Stephen Harper and Gilles Duceppe engineered, calling on the government to resign because it had lost the confidence of the house, was not technically that holy of holies, a "confidence vote." It was, you see, as Mr. Tony Valerie, leader of the Government in the House of Commons explained to us, a "procedural matter." Only in Canada...

A couple of weeks ago Stephen Harper made a joke at a press conference about the NDP/Liberal budget deal in which he quoted the great grandfather of realpolitik himself, Niccolo Machiavelli. This little moment, though I don't exactly remember the joke, has been buzzing around me with increasing persistence as the possiblity of an election approaches; I don't know why, but Stephen Harper's words are my new gadfly... To remedy this, and because while living in Pleasant Valley I have time in abundance, I decided earlier this week to reread Machiavelli's seminal treatise called The Prince, a sort of how-to book for dictators, Kings, Dukes and Prime Ministers that runs the gamut from bad to good, wicked to wise, and always with one objective in mind - becoming the Prince and staying that way. I have to say, the man has some very good and startlingly practical advice, one salient morcel of which I quote here:

"...one should never allow chaos to develop in order to avoid going to
war, because one does not avoid a war but instead puts it off to his
disadvantage."

It was good advice then, and as far as can see it's is good advice right now. I'm not saying an election is a done deal or anything like that, but the chaos that is spiralling out of the House of Commons, and is being fuelled by a PM on the defensive with no apparent strategy to stabilize, let alone maintain the government, seems to require some concrete Machiavelli-style action. War then? Too late to avoid that, as the Conservatives and Bloc made clear last night by tossing proverbial egg on the face of the government - showing the government cannot even win a FAKE vote of confidence, so what can they be expected to do about the very very REAL ones coming down the pipes in the next two weeks...

I'm still in the first half of The Prince, but if shrewd Machiavelli comes up with any good suggestions, I'll be sure to email them to the PMO - anything is better than nothing, right?