Prime Minister Stephen Harper, with his wife Laureen beside him, waves to supporters at a Conservative Party fundraiser in Montreal on May 20, 2009. THE CANADIAN PRESS
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Stéphane Gobeil - By making a habit of closing Parliament, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has once again freed himself from the inconvenience of having any elected counterweight. Having dispatched what Jeffrey Simpson called the Friendly Dictatorship, please welcome the Minority Dictatorship.
Who would have said, four years ago, that despite winning only a minority government Mr. Harper would be able to concentrate more power in his own hands than Jean Chrétien ever did with a majority?
Mr. Chrétien had strong ministers – Paul Martin, Allan Rock, John Manley, Ralph Goodale – able to counterbalance him in cabinet. From a Quebec perspective, one cannot see in this Tory government even one minister who could stand up to the Prime Minister on any issue.
Compared to Mr. Harper, and after the demise of Stéphane Dion, Michael Ignatieff is as weak as anyone could imagine. The Liberal Leader clearly admitted his own weakness when he announced his intention not to defeat the government for the next year or so. Jack Layton, once the only real opposition to Mr. Harper in Canada, was the one who saved the government last autumn. The only brave members left now are Gilles Duceppe and his 47 Bloc Québécois MPs.
With such a weak opposition in Parliament and no opposition at all in his own party and government, the Prime Minister is in a strong position – maybe the strongest ever. Why then does he need to shut down Parliament? I'm afraid the answer lies in Norman Spector's musings on Jan. 1: a spring election. Not to say that an election is absolutely certain, but Mr. Harper clearly wants the window to be opened in March.
Having managed to pilot Canada's economy through the 2009 economic storm; Mr. Harper will ask Canadians for a stronger mandate to put Canada further ahead. His platform will be 99-per-cent focused on the economy and public finances. Ontario will be the main battleground and the Tory Leader hopes to finally reach the majority he wants so much.

If a leader in such a strong position feels such a strong need to obtain a majority, it must be that he somehow still feels constrained by his minority situation. It must be that Mr. Harper wishes to do something that he knows would be intolerable even to such a weak opponent as Mr. Ignatieff.
The Prime Minister has never done better than winning 26 per cent of the votes and 11 seats (of 75) in Quebec. The 2006 and 2008 elections resulted in the weakest standing of any federal government there since 1867. To Quebeckers, Mr. Harper’s policies are already felt to be offensive, even with the restraint imposed by minority status. I wonder what would happen if there was no such limitation on his legislative agenda?
As I wrote previously, I think Mr. Harper will win his majority without Quebec and the Canadian government will be as far as ever from Quebeckers on such issues as climate change, energy policy, law and order, foreign affairs, the gun registry, arts and culture, federal transfers and spending power, and more generally on relations between Quebec and Ottawa.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the failure of the Meech Lake accord. Remember? Mr. Harper's political career and the foundation of the Reform Party are rooted around the rejection of Meech and its offer of a distinct-society clause to Quebec. Ironically, Mr. Harper's only real success in the province happened when he recognized Quebec not as a distinct society, but as a nation. Of course, we know it was only a fake recognition. But still, he can surprise us at any time and not always for the best.
In a speech last December, Mr. Duceppe said: "The absence of political will to accommodate Quebec has lasted for 20 years, now. One must admit the fact that such a constitutional proposal from Canada will never happen again." In Quebec, federalists have nothing to propose, because they know the answer from Canada to anything of substance is and will be "No." Yet, the federalists refuse to sign the Constitution. They are bogged down in an intellectual and political collapse.
Jean Charest, the only credible federalist leader in Quebec, is slowly weakening thanks to corruption scandals in the construction industry. The Christmas-time prorogation could be a prologue to 2010 as political crossroads. Because if Minority Dictatorship is sufficient to keep Quebec away from Stephen Harper's government, who could dismiss the idea that a Majority Dictatorship will be sufficient to separate Quebec from the Canadian government?
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Stéphane Gobeil was an adviser to Gilles Duceppe, writing speeches and the Bloc Québécois electoral platform. He now runs his own political consulting business.