Where are the Canadians against Sitting On Your Hands in Parliament Facebook Page? Photo: Matt Campbell.

As has been well reported on by now, 30 Liberals MPs sat on their hands during the federal budget vote, allowing it to pass in the House of Commons. What’s particularly interesting are some of the big-mouth big-names in that list.

There’s the feisty Denis Coderre; the heir apparent Justin Trudeau; the environmentally-friendly sex toys promoter, Carolyn Bennett; the man never you would never expect to sit on an opinion, Irwin Cotler; the supernanny, Ruby Dhalla; the MP for whom no amount of rhetoric about torture is too extreme, Ujjal Dosanjh; the “embarrassed” to travel with Canadian flag on backpack, Hedy Fry; the man who would be king except they anointed Michael Ignatieff, Dominic LeBlanc; a former reformer turned hand-sitter, Keith Martin; the list goes on and on.

This is the same political party that was moaning loudest about the fact that the Conservatives were robbing the people of Canada of their democratic rights by proroguing Parliament. But the moment they are given a chance to make a decision on a budget, they strategically abstain to ensure it passes.

I’ll tell you why this bothers me so much. To begin with, is there anything particularly offensive in the budget? I mean, as far the Liberal party goes, the spending and programs are remaining fairly status quo, with the only restraint coming in future military spending and foreign aid. They haven’t exactly pulled a 1996 Paul Martin budget here.

Would it really be so bad if the Liberals were forced to pass the budget? What’s wrong with voting for something you agree with? It may not be the perfect idea of what a budget should be, but the Liberals aren’t being very convincing when they say they could have done better. Without increasing taxes and cutting spending, what else could the Conservatives have done? Surely nobody in their right mind would advise the government hurry into more debt?

So what’s wrong with voting for the budget? Would it be admitting that they like the Conservative government? Not at all. There’s no reason that you can’t support a money matter in accordance with the wishes of the population, while making constructive criticisms about it at the same time. And if you truly can’t stomach the budget, then vote against it. Channelling the Stephane Dion era of hand-sitting makes a mockery of the Liberal Party, particularly in light of their melodramatic protestations over the prolonged prorogation.

Conventional wisdom would dictate that if you don’t vote in politics, you abdicate your right to comment on matters that involve you. Without at least making the symbolic effort to either support or resist an idea, you cannot later complain when things aren’t going the way you’d like them to. Similarly with the Liberal Party, when Ujjal Dosanjh arises at some near future date in the House of Commons to ask about a money issue, Jim Flaherty would be well within his rights to retort:

“Mr.Speaker, I find it difficult to believe that the Honourable Member has a genuine interest in this matter, since when given the opportunity to oppose this government’s budget, he sat on his hands and refused to exercise the duties he was elected to perform by his constituents.”

It’s bad enough the Liberal leader seems to need to hold national tours every few semesters in order to receive ideas to supplement his nonexistent party policies. But to plagiarize Jack Layton’s own call for a bill to limit the powers of the executive to request prorogation of the Governor-General? Why, how very unconstitutional of you, Michael.

Yes, this little bit of news fluff would indicate that it’s day one of the official prorogation of Parliament, since today would have been the day that the government finished their extended Christmas vacation and headed back to work. And since there’s no opportunity to distract the House from the important business of how many shoes went up side the head of the Taliban, this will have to suffice.

Mr.Ignatieff is calling for 10 days written notice be given the opposition prior to any time the Prime Minister decides to go ‘rogue and shut down the country.

“We think it is appropriate now to set down clearly limits on the power of prorogation. We are dealing with a Prime Minister who has shown that he doesn’t have the political character to respect our institutions, so in our view a change of the rules is needed,” Michael Ignatieff told reporters.

Any prorogation would have to brought before the House for a debate, to ensure that it isn’t being called strictly for political opportunism. And, if the opposition doesn’t find any political opportunity in opposing the move, they could accede to the request. Of course, it kind of gives the official opposition the power of the Governor-General, but so what? It isn’t as if Canadians really care about the boring technicalities of our blasé little constitutional monarchy anyway.

But to cut right to chase here, if Stephen Harper’s reason for prorogation was a politically-motivated escape from the detainee committee which was hearing about Richard Colvin’s hard luck stories from the third world, then this recent Liberal-NDP treatise is certainly as politically-motivated. Mr.Ignatieff would have any committee hearings to continue through to the start of the new session, which would include, of course, the Afghan committee.

As Norman Spector observes, this is coming from a man who said just last week that he doesn’t mind prorogation, as long as it isn’t abused. Or to be more precise, abused by Stephen Harper.

The Liberals want to tie the hands of the Prime Minister, and in turn the Governor-General, by limiting the powers of prorogation by any government in the first year of their mandate. Indeed, the first year of a government is the period in which the Governor-General is most likely to oppose the Prime Minister’s request for an election. This short-sightedness is based entirely on the immediate urgency of limiting the powers of Stephen Harper, and has nothing to do with limiting the powers of the Prime Minister.

The power of the opposition continues to rest within their majority vote to end the government when it reconvenes in March. But of course waiting until then wouldn’t do much for the day-to-day manufacturing plants of Liberal and NDP outrage. And we wouldn’t want to put any of these people out of work, just as the economy is rebounding.

Protesters in Toronto for the anti-prorogation demonstration. Photo: Impolitical

Demonstrations are underway all across Canada today, as the thousands of Canadians who oppose the prorogation of Parliament march in protest that it will not reconvene on Monday. This may be the most digital demonstration yet, as hundreds of people are either live-blogging, or tweeting as they attend the rallies. CBC’s political junkie and resident workaholic Kady O’Malley has her liveblog up in Ottawa, although it’s been interrupted by trips to the CBC truck to warm up. Her early estimates put 3,500 on Parliament Hill.

From the various pictures being snapped by cell phones and posted to blogs and Twitter, it would appear that this rally is about more than just a “non-partisan” anger over prorogation. There are the unions out in force, the anti-war movement with signs from the Toronto Coalition to Stop the War, the marijuana legalization crowd, and of course the ubiquitous greenpeace “tar sands” global warming-is-going-to-end-the-world people under 30.

The turnout proves that the social media activists are also capable of taking their digital rage to the streets. But the numbers certainly don’t appear to be as grand as they were on the famous Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament Facebook page. Bloggers who attended rallies in the big cities like Toronto and Ottawa estimated numbers ranging as high as 7,000, and as low as 2,000. When you consider that the Toronto rally took place on a Saturday in downtown Toronto at Dundas and Yonge, you can assume an average of 1,000 people are likely to be in that location on any given Saturday, with or without a demonstration going on.

I don’t mean to downplay the protests which, I’m sure, were very sincerely based on a common raw rage and hatred of Stephen Harper and his contempt for Democracy. And that’s actually a very important part of understanding much of this “non-partisan” anti-prorogation rage.

As Paul Adams of Ekos told the Globe and Mail, the depth of the anger about prorogation caught just about everybody by surprise. But it wasn’t just prorogation that caused the backlash.

“The prorogation story crystallized sentiments that people had begun to develop about the government over a long term,” Mr. Adams told the Globe. The Conservative decline began back in October, when they reached their polling high of 41%. The reason for the tumble, according to Brian Lilley, is that the Conservatives always spike when the Liberals threaten to defeat the government. When those threats ended, support gradually began to glide back to the more normal resting places for both parties.

But the Conservatives definitely overestimated the apathy of the Canadian people. Or to quote Rick Mercer:

“See, this is what I love about Canada. Yes, we are apathetic, but the minute anybody tries to use our apathy against us, suddenly we start to care big time.”

In my mind the prorogation of Parliament was simply a naked partisan move to control the Senate, and I wasn’t going to concern myself much with it beyond that. They can call it a “recalibration” if it makes them feel better. But my advice would be to take a page from the former Liberal government and begin radio silence on this issue from here on in.

After all, having Jason Kenney write the opposition’s attack ads by saying stupid things like, “I often get more done when the House is not in session” or Helena Guergis trying to convince us that people are “pleased” about prorogation, really isn’t helping their cause.