Tagged: Jean Chretien
Canada had one too
The US blogosphere is in a lather over a video of US Sen. Bob Ethridge (D-NC), looking tired and emotional, grabbing a student who tried to question him on a DC sidewalk. Glenn Greenwald wants the Senator charged with assault.
Lest we be too smug, remember how then-Prime Minister Jean Chretien, apparently sober, throttled Emploment Insurance protester Bill Clennett at a Flag Day rally in 1996, throwing him to the ground and breaking one of his teeth.
A third party did lay a charge of assault against Chretien, but the Attorney General of Quebec declined to proceed with the case.
Why this prorogation is different
Defenders of Harper’s three-month prorogation lean heavily on the talking point that Jean Chretien and Pierre Trudeau both used prorogation without provoking a fuss. Contrarian reader C. Leonhardt thinks the analogy is flawed:
Both these prime ministers had a majority in the House when they prorogued Parliament. If their decisions had been challenged, they would have won the vote in the House. Harper’s party does not hold a majority of the seats in the House. He would have lost the vote. To claim that his actions repesent past practice is false. At this point one man controls this country.
The last line overstates things, but the distinction is important. Both times Harper used prorogation to thwart the will of a Parliament whose majority opposed him and his policies.
