Consequences

Carolyn Parrish has been thrown out of the Liberal caucus by Prime Minister Paul Martin, who said Thursday that her behaviour had become "unacceptable."

According to the one Canadian with whom I am familiar, the government is perilously close to falling because the Liberal Party and New Democratic Party Coalition's now two vote deficit. A straight-party no-confidence vote would bring a 153 to 153 vote tie leaving two independents (Parrish being one of them) to determine the outcome. It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out. President Bush is scheduled to visit Ottawa later this year. I wonder if a new government will arise in the meantime.

Paul Wells makees a point in his post about her that makes my earlier whining about the left just more indicative of my Americentrism (hey, I own it!). She does drink the Left's kool-aid though.

(It is, though, odd to call her and some other Bush critics "anti-American"; she never had a cross word to say about the Yankees until the Democrats lost the White House. She has a party she prefers when it comes to forming the government of the U.S., just as Mr. Bush has a party he prefers when it comes to forming the government of, say, Spain. He stated his own preference; she stated hers. It is a measure of her perverse genius that she managed to make Bush look elegant by comparison.)

To be honest, she was probably dismissed more for her outright flouting of Prime Minister Paul Martin's authority than for her statements and actions against the President. Still, I take a little pleasure in seeing her taken to task for her insubordination if nothing else.

Wells again:

And now we come to day's most richly entertaining lesson. No prime minister can tolerate a display of open contempt from somebody who is supposed to be a member of his team. The proper response to such behaviour is dismissal. Paul Martin reached that inevitable conclusion today.

Also, for my American readers, a good resource on how the Westminster System of Parliament works can be found here and here. This is the system of governance used in most of the Commonwealth countries and/or the Anglosphere members.