Separatists: from wooed to whipping boys

Mr. Harper zeroed in on Quebec. The master strategist who has wooed that province for the past two years turned anything and anyone with a French name into a whipping boy. Memo to Quebec: Call Danny Williams; a world of hurt is coming your way.

And our Prime Minister suggested that, in a constitutional crisis, the Governor-General must not listen to constitutional advisers but to him and him alone. The PMO organized a protest at the Governor-General's residence. Staffers all over Ottawa were given the day off to stand there waving signs reading, "The Bloc Sucks" and "Stop the Coup." Surely the Queen was not amused.

Back on Parliament Hill, Minister of Bluster John Baird proudly announced that Conservatives would go over the head of Parliament and of the Governor-General. He planted the seed for what sounds like the Republic of Canada, in which Mr. Harper and not the monarch is the head of state.

One assumes that a Harper republic will differ from others in the world as he ostensibly will have majority powers without having that old-fashioned 50-per-cent support in either the country or the Commons.

All this made for a perfect storm. Our system works on the assumption that, regardless of whether we have a minority government, we will always be guaranteed of having a clear and decisive majority of rational men and women who will in times of crisis put nation over personal or party interests. It operates on the assumption that our leaders will put country before party.

Seems we are out of luck on that front — our bad.

The crisis has not ended but simply has been postponed.

In the new year, Mr. Harper will return with the biggest-spending budget in Canadian history. People who voted Conservative will be outraged — but their cries will be drowned out by the applause of the paid staffers again lining the sidewalk outside 24 Sussex. Knut the Polar Bear will bask in the adoration.

And, yes, the coalition may survive long enough to defeat them anyway — revenge being a dish best served at the first possible opportunity.

Meanwhile, this great democracy of ours has ceased to function. We have no government because they just can't get along. It is a mess that defies comprehension but has one simple solution.

We need one more strange-bedfellows event: a historic press conference at which Stephen Harper and Stéphane Dion apologize to their country and then to their parties. And then they resign — no questions please.

Because, quite frankly, they deserve one another — and Canada deserves better.

The Rick Mercer Report appears Tuesday nights on CBC

Special to The Globe and Mail