I watched Belinda Stronach cross the floor yesterday and didn’t believe a word of why.

I was outraged at the sexist public comments by three Conservative MPs. One apologized. When Scott Brison crossed the floor, there wasn’t the kind of name calling we saw yesterday. However, I’m equally unimpressed that someone can join the governing party and jump into a cabinet post.

Stronach has never made any secret of her ambitions. As Magna heiress, she’ll get what she wants. I watched a subdued Peter McKay on the family farm in Nova Scotia struggling to be a gentleman. He got publically dumped. He didn’t look at the interviewer much, so, I’m inclined to believe it wasn’t a total act. I can appreciate he may well have headed home to get his feet back under him.

The public playing out of their relationship mirrors the tensions in Otttawa, and I think in some ways Canada.

This is a big country, held together by tenous relationships. Today, the fate of a federal government will come down to a couple of independents.

In the grand scheme of history Canada is a young democracy. It is a country that sees itself as bigger and more important than it is. It’s a softer power than it’s citizens want to admit. We have a lot of growing up and growing out to do.

I was trying to explain to a US friend why this budget vote is unprecedented.
I didn’t get much more than a yawn and a question, Do most Canadians care?

I can’t answer that. Watching a government trying to pay it’s way into holding position, spin, and the nastiness of power struggles, the loss of trust, I don’t know. It doesn’t make today’s vote any less unprecedented.

Independent Carolyn Parrish may have appendicitis. MP Jim Karygiannis got wheeled out the house yesterday on a stretcher. He’ll be back today. Every vote counts.

Now that Stronach has defected, the Liberals and the NDP have 151 votes and the Tories and the Bloc 152.

Carolyn Parrish, a former Liberal MP who now sits as an Independent, has said she will vote with the Liberals, bringing their numbers up to 152.

That leaves the two remaining independents, David Kilgour and Chuck Cadman. If both vote against the budget, the government will fall.

If one votes with the Liberals and the other against, there would still be a tie.

And that would likely be broken in favour of the Liberals by House of Commons Speaker Peter Milliken.

“Obviously health has become a huge concern on the Hill in the last few days,” Thompson reported.

It was not clear if the illness of one Liberal would have changed things.

That’s because the Grits have already said they will sit out one member in order to be fair to the Conservatives who will have one cancer-stricken member absent.

Peter McKay’s banged up heart won’t keep him from the vote. If the government goes down, we’ll be facing six weeks of cutthroat elections.
If the government doesn’t fall will the paralysis in Ottawa continue?

In an ideal world Stronach and McKay could kiss and make up in their personal lives, ambition, party and and power secondary to relationship. In an ideal world, Canada wouldn’t live with the tensions of an angry Quebec knowing corruption is part of the glue used to hold this country together.

It’s not an ideal world. It’s not an ideal country. We’ll know tonight if we have a government, or whether we’ll go through six weeks of fighting for a new one.