Choosing one's battles

It's understandable that commentators may want to see checks on the power being illegitimately wielded by the Harper government after it ran and hid from an impending vote of non-confidence. And Norman Spector suggests that the first step should be for Michaelle Jean to reject Harper's impending delivery of 18 Con hacks to the Senate trough. But as much as Harper deserves to be blamed for forcing the choice on Jean, I have to be concerned that her following Spector's advice would only make matters worse on virtually all fronts.

As a matter of constitutional principle, I'm not sure how there would be any basis upon which Jean could decline the Senate appointments after accepting prorogation at Harper's advice. To the extent Jean's state of constitutional knowledge doesn't include the fact that the Cons were and are set to fall, there hasn't been anything in the meantime to change that state of affairs.

At most, it's possible that Jean may have set some conditions privately which Harper is now flouting publicly, which would result in some principled basis for denying the Senate appointments. But even then, Jean would have to determine which decision would be least likely to do harm to her office and to the country. And as much as I normally avoid "keeping the powder dry" types of analysis, this looks to be one of the rare situations where it's worth waiting for a more significant issue to come.

After all, the Cons have made it entirely clear that they were willing to stop at nothing to try to cling to power - including potentially trying to fire Jean before she could let democracy run its course.

Now, they're obviously in no position to slam her initial decision granting prorogation. (Though it's noteworthy how few Cons seem to have actually approved of her judgment rather than assumed that no other choice existed.)

But one has to assume that Harper already has an all-out public assault on the Governor-General ready to be rolled out at a moment's notice. And it would be nothing short of a gift to Harper to allow him to launch that attack on Jean over a series of appointments which, while hypocritical and illegitimate, ultimately don't figure to substantially affect how Canada is governed.

At worst, it wouldn't be at all surprising to see Harper replace Jean with a partisan Con over the Senate appointments as his government hinted at doing over prorogation. And even at best, Jean would face a concerted campaign to bow to Harper's will on the appointments, and would almost certainly wind up being pressured not to decide against Harper the next time a key decision fell into her jurisdiction.

Which is a serious problem, since the real battle is set to run at the end of January when the Cons face the confidence vote that they ducked this month.

At that time, the difference between a GG wounded by a Con negative advertising blitz (or replaced by Harper's choice of partisan foot soldiers) and one whose independent authority is largely intact may determine whether or not the toxic Harper regime remains in power following a vote of non-confidence. And the entrenchment of a few more Harper cronies at the public trough on the minority side of the Senate would prove a small price to pay to preserve the GG's independence - and hopefully move Canada's executive authority out of Harper's hands.