The world needs more Canada. So How come Canada and “democracy assistance” are oxymoronic? In a blast-from-the-past from Canada's Journal of Ideas, relevant again because of Tunisia and Egypt's uprisings, Shuvaloy Majumdar and Christopher Sands argue Canada should imitate how Ronald Reagan and U.S. labour leader Lane Kirkland helped out Poland's Solidarity in the 1980s….

Harper’s decision to request prorogation has proven controversial because his critics (some of them sympathetic to his political program) believe he is abusing his executive power over Parliament. Harper’s defenders point out that there is nothing unconstitutional about prorogation and that Parliament’s current dysfunction justifies it.

Where have all the Liberals gone? Based on recent by-elections, it would appear they’ve migrated to the Greater Toronto Area. Unable to win in the Quebec by-elections of a few months ago, now struck down in northern Saskatchewan and almost defeated in the Liberal stronghold of Vancouver Quadra, only Toronto seems enamored of Canada’s “Natural Governing Party.” And despite its size, Toronto does not a majority party make.

Events of recent days in Ottawa have culminated, it seems, in a grand coalition complete with an official signing ceremony as if giving legitimacy to an event somewhat less than legitimate. From a constitutional perspective, the coalition formed between the Liberals and the NDP with the sworn support of the Bloc Quebecois, is in fact entirely legal and based on a precedent, of sorts. Of course, there’s been no vote yet to bring down the sitting government so it does have a slightly premature air to it, but as constitutional experts will assure us, it is valid within the traditions of Parliamentary democracy. And yet, something still stinks. It’s as if all the benedictions of all the constitutional law professors in Canada still can’t remove some overarching stain from this coalition. Why is that?

The world needs more Canada. So How come Canada and “democracy assistance” are oxymoronic? In a blast-from-the-past from Canada's Journal of Ideas, relevant again because of Tunisia and Egypt's uprisings, Shuvaloy Majumdar and Christopher Sands argue Canada should imitate how Ronald Reagan and U.S. labour leader Lane Kirkland helped out Poland's Solidarity in the 1980s….