The reviews are in

Stephen Maher:

(I)t’s striking that Mr. Harper would point to the polls to show that he is in tune with Canadians’ priorities, because Canadians don’t like the fact that he has shut down Parliament.

According to two polls, most Canadians — including many Conservative supporters — are opposed to prorogation.

More than 100,000 people have joined a Facebook group in protest, and commentators across the political spectrum are united in disapproval.

Even The Economist — the influential British magazine — published two articles attacking Mr. Harper.

Here is why everyone has the same view: There is nothing good to say about this.

The best thing that Mr. Harper can say — that he needs the time to work on the economy — is hard to believe, and even if you do believe it, it is an admission of failure.

"We need the time — to look carefully at our agenda, to continue to deliver the economic measures that are being delivered here and elsewhere across the country as part of the economic action plan," he said in New Brunswick on Friday.

If he needs the time, that must be because he is not doing a very good job. Canadian governments have always been able to put together budgets while dealing with the inconvenience of facing our representatives in the House of Commons.

His inability to do that is either a frank admission of incompetence or a falsehood.
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The Tories have lost a few points, but they remain five points ahead of the Liberals, and Mr. Harper has worked hard for years to fix himself in the public mind as an economic manager.

But if Canadians come to think that Mr. Harper is abusing their democratic institutions to suit his political goals — which he is — they won’t like that.