Coalition with a mandate, or a bloodless coup d'état?

So, last night I watched Question Period on CPAC (which is essentially the Parliamentary Channel). I watched various politicians rail and stomp and applaud and hurl words at each other (all through the Speaker of the House, of course), and it was all very entertaining. But I'm pretty baffled.

First of all, I don't envy Michaelle Jean, who, as Governor-General, has to sort this mess out somehow. That's about the only thing I'm clear on.

As for the rest, I really don't know what to think.

The coalition between the Liberals and the NDP is all well and good, but I don't trust the Bloc Québecois. I'm sure Gilles Duceppe is a nice enough man, but he wants to split up my country. I'd like something a little more binding than merely his word that he'll let the coalition govern unmolested for eighteen months. While I can see that it would be important for Canada's economy to be healthy in order for Québec's economy to be healthy (while Québec is still part of Canada), I really don't see what other benefit there is in this agreement for the Bloc. And is this really enough for them to sign on? I'm not sure.

I'm also not sure if I buy the argument that the coalition can legally (or even ethically) take control without having been elected as a coalition. Yes, it's true -- more Canadians did vote for the individual parties who are now united as a coalition than for the Conservative minority government under Harper -- but does that really give them the go-ahead? Again, I'm not sure.

If the Governor-General prorogues this session of Parliament and the Conservatives come back with a Throne Speech and a budget in January, the coalition is sure to vote it down, thus sending us into yet another federal election. We just had a federal election on October 14. Do we really need another one this soon? Oh, how I long for the good ol' five-year terms when we pretty much had to drag them kicking and screaming to Rideau Hall.

I don't want another election. I like elections, and I don't want another election. If they thought the voter turn-out for the last election was dismal, I'd hate to see what it would look like in January or February, so soon after the last one. I read somewhere that elections cost about $300 million. Wow. If that's accurate, I'm sure that we could spend that better somewhere else.

And yet ... I really don't like The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, mostly because I don't think he is honourable. I really can't stand him as Prime Minister. I think he is arrogant and elitist and cold, and that was before he said that I was living immersed in a "culture of defeat" and his party basically threatened my previously-Liberal riding by saying that constituencies who are the same party as the government generally do better when it comes to government funding for projects. Don't misunderstand me -- I don't want anything to happen to the man -- but I do want him to be evicted from 24 Sussex Drive.

So, really and truly, I don't know what I want to happen here. I just don't.

It'll be interesting to see what the Governor-General thinks of all this. I wonder what her boss thinks, for that matter ... and if she'll still be our Head of State when all of this settles. With the Bloc, who knows?