Canada's Prorogation and the Black Swan Effect

The Black Swan theory (in Nassim Nicholas Taleb 's version) refers to a large-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare event beyond the realm of normal expectations. Unlike the philosophical "black swan problem", the "Black Swan" theory (capitalized) refers only to events of large consequence and their dominant role in history.

I know every newscast these days has a constitutional expert citing precedence (that, and streeters with angry Albertans). But the fact of the matter is, this is unprecedented. Michaelle Jean is today setting the precedence future scholars will cite.

And, because of that, she needs to be very careful. Allowing a Prime Minister to escape a confidence vote in the House through prorogation allows a Prime Minister to govern without the confidence of the House. In my opinion, this breaks a fundamental rule of our parliamentary system.

What's worse, it sets a terrible precedence. Can you imagine Paul Martin proroguing in May or December 2005 to escape confidence votes? Who knows how this power could be abused in the future.

Because of this, I firmly believe that the Governor General has a duty to turn down Harper's request, and force him to face the House on Monday. That said, I won't blame her if she agrees to it, since Harper has placed her in a Kobayashi Maru by asking her to do something he should not have asked her to do.

Is Prime Minister Stephen Harper about to take a page out of Grant Devine's playbook?

As the noose tightens around the PM's neck, speculation is mounting that he might prorogue Parliament in order to avoid losing a non-confidence vote.

Something very much like this happened in Saskatchewan in 1991, when former premier Devine prorogued the legislature before passing his government's spring budget.

The feeling at the time was that some Conservative MLAs were sufficiently upset about the direction of their government that they might vote against their own budget, raising the possibility the government could fall prematurely.

Devine's government staggered on to the fall of that year, but the early prorogation only underlined the image of a government no longer in control of its own agenda.

So it is with the Harper minority government now teetering on the brink of defeat. If he prorogues the House to avoid a non-confidence vote, Harper will manage to carry on as PM for a while longer. But he will become a hunted man who will no longer be able to throw around the phrase "weak leader."