Lloyd Mackey, parliamentary reporter and author of  Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Governance, lays out the pros and cons of proroguing parliament. Mackey, who writes Ottawa Watch at Canadian Christianity was challenged to lay the up side  for proroguing by west coast colleague Peter Biggs.
(I) hope you might explain why we are proroguing Parliament
…I would submit that the proroguing of Parliament is not only democratic, but provides opportunity for people of faith and goodwill to get some fair exposure in the Canadian media.
The two anti-prorogue arguments are:
· The Afghan detainee issue will not be discussed in parliamentary committees for two months.
· The Senate committees will be restructured to benefit the governing Tories, rather than the opposition.
He then addresses the issue of restorative justice in Afghanistan with the hope that there will be more reporting by Canadian media of what efforts the Canadian military are making; and addresses balance in a re-jigged Senate.
He makes his case without hyperbole, with the hope that those governing and those in opposition would work with less rancour.
In my fondest moments, I wonder, of course, whether the blue Liberals – especially those who could be defined as urban conservatives – could find themselves willing to coalesce with the Conservatives, to give them a majority that would enable them to govern effectively until 2012.
There are, of course practical reasons to eschew such moments. Just one example: What kind of language and negotiation would a Conservative prime minister use to bring on board those Liberals who are really conservatives, without being accused of doing what then-PM Paul Martin did in reverse, when he won over Belinda Stronach from the Tories?
And how careful does a Conservative prime minister need to be, in reaching out to potentially collaborative blue Liberals, to be sure that he is not inviting Trojan Horses into his bailiwick.
The present prime minister has had considerable success, of course, in bringing a disparate range of conservatives into one pretty cohesive unit.
The discussion can be had at Canadian Christianity.
