7:18 PM: The Prime Minister said more or less what he’d been saying all week — we won the election, and we’re going to use all legal means to protect it. (Full text here.)
No talk of prorogation — perhaps Harper sees it as presumptuous to speak of that before he talks to the Governor General?
What does the PM have up his sleeve?
7:21 PM: Harper was very calm, cool, collected.
No angry man he, in that address — the last reasonable man, as it were.
How will that compare with Dion’s demeanour?
7:27 PM: CBC speaking of Liberal disorganization re the tape. Does that speak to how they would govern? (The implication of Mansbridge’s observations.)
7:28 PM: Starts mid-sentence.
H’m.
“They have lost the right to govern.”
“Canadians do not want another election.”
7:29 PM: Put partisanship aside, work on the economy.
“Jack Layton and I.”
“The Bloc has agreed to support this coalition on matters of confidence.”
“Rules that govern and conventions that guide it.”
“Consensus, good will, and co-operation.”
7:30 PM: Coalition is a consensus. To create jobs, stimulate the economy, etc.
7:31 PM: Ooh — elements to be spelled out if we’re allowed to present it to the House of Commons.
Principled — let Parliament know first — but perhaps foolhardy: Harper spoke of specific measures in his (short) address.
7:32 PM: “Well-baying … well-paying” — couldn’t they do a second take? Or is this meant to be a reminder of the last week of the campaign?
7:33 PM: “Government has a role to play — your government has a role to play.”
H’m.
7:35 PM: Last personal note… protect jobs, etc.
He didn’t sell this household, but we all voted for Harper last time out.
7:37 PM: In other words, I stand by my man — I think that, boneheaded move or not, he’s still the best guy for the job — but I expect that my Liberal and Dipper friends would say the same about their potential coalition government.
7:40 PM: So… I was very unimpressed by Dion’s response, and I was a little disappointed not to see a real rip-roaring decision announced by the PM in his speech.
A very Canadian political crisis. 
7:44 PM: Alan calls it fuzzy-headed.
He’s not wrong.
Duceppe’s speaking now — speaking live, which is one-up on the others. He’s taking the time to hammer Harper in Quebec — which is what matters for the Bloc, more than anything else.
7:47 PM: Am waiting for Jack!
Will he stir things up?
7:50 PM: This totally is Layton’s moment. He’s in the Parliamentary Lobby. He’s wearing a snappy blue tie. He’s speaking in English and French. He’s standing.
He’s speaking more in sorrow than in anger.
In other words, he’s John Gilbert Layton, not Jack!
7:51 PM: Oh, here we go — Layton is the first man of the evening to go to the economic update.
Somebody had to do it. Mind you, it moves us away from John Gilbert Layton, and back to Radical Jack!
So we’ll see where this goes. Layton’s at least speaking to the issues.
7:53 PM: Really, Jack Layton is making a far better case for the coalition than did Duceppe or Dion.
I can see who will be the driving force behind this government — Layton knows where he wants to go.
7:54 PM: But I think that the effect is being dissipated by length.
Too long-winded, Mr. Layton!
Should’ve kept it to five minutes.
7:55 PM: The CBC — well, Don Newman — announces that the PM is going to meet with the Governor General at 9:30 AM and they expect that he will ask for a prorogation.
Should be interesting to see what happens.
8:00 PM: ITQ also thought Layton was good.
8:05 PM: Back to CTV — ouch, Bob Fife is really ripping Dion’s speech. Says the New Democrats are furious because Dion made them all look like fools.
I don’t know — they still have 163 votes, and that’s what counts.
8:31 PM: Defection!
Just one, though — eight to go, and who knows if Michael Chong will be going the other way…
8:35 PM: Ouch! Mansbridge called Dion’s video bizarre — said it looked like it was a YouTube video shot on a cell phone.
8:44 PM: Various video clips available here.
8:59 PM: Okay, Radwanski takes it — meanest description of Dion before Coyne shows up on At Issue in 20 minutes –
At a time when he needed to look reassuring, to look prime ministerial, he looked exactly the way the Conservatives have been trying to portray him – like the leader of some sort of third-rate coup, being filmed in his hideout with one of his accomplices sticking a cheap video camera in his face.
Ow.
9:54 PM: “At Issue” was relatively tame, but this is intriguing –
I was in Guelph last Friday for a meeting. I wish I had met Frank Valeriote then. Maybe someday soon.
Here’s another brave man, Michael Chong, from the other side of the aisle. We were at a wonderful Sikh wedding last weekend, and Michael was there – and I can attest to the fact that he, too, is a very impressive person.
We need more MPs like these two in the House of Commons, don’t you think?
I’m thinking that there’s a certain leadership frontrunner who has very cold feet. But if that’s not so, I’m thinking that there’s a wing of the Liberal Party with even colder feet… Saw the Facebook status of a law school friend who is on the other side, politically, who said that he “thinks, constitutionally, the GG should refuse to prorogue Parliament, but is pretty sure she’ll accept, and that’s probably best in the circumstances.“
Go figure.
They taped this only 27 minutes ago. It’s like something you would see on Bulgarian TV in 1957.
Bulgarian TV in 1957?!? Never have I regretted more that I can’t get Canadian TV channels from RCN cable in New York!
Off to find the video online…
Should’ve gone to CPAC, or bought a month’s pass to CTV Broadband…
(Alan was talking about Dion’s video.)
So… I was very unimpressed by Dion’s response, and I was a little disappointed not to see a real rip-roaring decision announced by the PM in his speech.
Agreed.
But I think that if this any effect at all, it helps Harper.
Putting these two guys back to back just made him look and sound much more like a leader.
If people are looking for a steady hand in a time of crisis, I think Harper may have won this round.
Aye, I should have. In my own defense, I was expecting a less exciting month…
What stopped you fifteen minutes ago? You have a credit card, sir.
Was there a French version of Harper’s speech? If not…isn’t Quebec going to notice?
There was. Almost word-for-word. (Though apparently the PM says “sovereigntist” rather than “separatist”, as he apparently always does in French.)
Jeesh – I wonder what Dion’s response in French was like. Belgium 1903, flickering black and white film with cards giving the text. Ending with grainy shots of men doffing their bowler hats to each other as they leave the scene by horse and carriage.
Alan’s mean.
It was so bad. So bad. It was like he was being taped on Betamax. It was like it was beamed in from deep in the Congo care of Anik 1. It was like there were people two feet from him telling him what to say using hand signals. It was bad.
I can’t believe I am giving you all my best lines.
You and Bob Fife, two peas in a pod on M. Dion.
It could have been worse. Could have said, “Do you think it’s easy to make video responses?”
Same excuse – I had expected it to be unremarkable. So, I went to the gym after work instead of checking out the news. Evidently this was a mistake… though it has now been corrected!
Now Peter Mansbridge is sounding like you, Alan…
Yet they get all the big money.
I don’t think Chong will defect. He says what even some of the more partisan Tories I know of are thinking; that the government made an extremely stupid move to get us here in the first place. But, from what it sounds like, I don’t believe he would support a coalition.
Posted that before I saw Chong’s letter to the paper — I thought he might defect, but it’s looking more like he’s an independent-minded, principled Conservative.
Not a man you can put in cabinet, given principles of cabinet solidarity, but a good man to have in Ottawa.