King Arthur Movie Tristan

Some days it seems everybody is reading At Home in Hespeler, and taking down notes. Case in point: todays lead editorial in the Toronto Sun May Gives Green Light to Vote Grit.

Federal Green party Leader Elizabeth May is a big fan of Liberal Leader Stephane Dion. She's even called his tenure as the last Liberal environment minister "magnificent."

Logically, then, a prominent Vancouver environmentalist last week jumped from the Green ship to run for Dion's Liberals in the next election. According to May's reasoning, that makes perfect sense. After all, in addition to being a huge fan of Dion, May has made it crystal clear she is NOT a fan of Prime Minister Stephen Harper on environmental issues and argued the single most important thing is to defeat him in the next election.

Given that, Briony Penn, the (former) Green party supporter in Vancouver, must have figured why not team up with the party that has best chance of stopping Harper right now -- the Liberals, not the Greens.

Perhaps, under May's stalwart leadership, more Green candidates will jump to the Liberals.

Maybe people who were thinking of voting for the Greens because of their stands on environmental issues will now strategically vote for the Liberals instead. After all, May has given Dion her green seal of approval.

A few weeks ago, I had a similar thought:

If Elizabeth May is only interested in knocking off Conservatives, if she doesn't want to unseat a Liberal or New Democrat, what's the point of the Green Party? Why doesn't she just join one of those two parties?

You'd think that would be enough for one day. But then one of the best writers in Canada, Andrew Coyne, offers a strategy for the Liberal/NDP/Bloc coalition should the Harper government fall ("Spring Election? Maybe Not": not available on-line):

The assumption is that defeat on a confidence vote would automatically precipitate an election, the third in three years. But in fact it would not. It would mean the fall of the Harper government. But it is up to the Governor-General what happens next. Rather than dissolve Parliament and call new elections, she has the prerogative to ascertain, if Mr. Harper cannot command the confidence of the house, whether anyone else can.

That's exactly what I said a year and a half ago about another minority government (OK, I didn't say it here, but I said it):

Use the Conservatives opposition day next week to declare non-confidence in the Liberals. Then inform the governor general that the three opposition parties have an agreement in place and the Conservatives are ready to form a government. I'm no constitutional lawyer, but I think in the case of no confidence the governor general is obligated to see if the opposition can control the house.

That's two in one day: next it will be Terrance Corcoran using my connection between Pigovian tax, Toronto Hydro rate increases and Dalton McGuinty's smart meters.

Imagine what I could do if I could get off my but and start writing again.