Angry in the Great White North

Prime Minister Stephen Harper wants to meet with the other party leaders.  He wants to know if Jack Layton of the NDP, Gilles Duceppe of the Bloc Quebecois, and Stephane Dion of the Liberal Party will support some sort of Conservative Party agenda in the next session.

Stephen Harper wants those meetings sooner than later.  If the answer is that no support is forthcoming, Stephen Harper will likely call for an election.

Stephane Dion thinks he is playing hardball.  He's too busy, he says, until September 9, the day after three by-elections are done.

Dion thinks that he can hold off an election call by not going to this meeting.  Instead, Stephane Dion has managed to marginalize himself yet again.

Jack Layton is stepping up to show his supporters, and Liberal voters, that he can fulfill the role of Opposition Leader:

Harper has sought meetings with all three opposition leaders to see if they can agree on an agenda for the fall session of Parliament, scheduled to begin Sept. 15.

He will meet Saturday with NDP Leader Jack Layton, who told CBC News on Thursday that he'll hear what Harper has to say but expects little change to the prime minister's agenda.

But what of Gilles Duceppe?  At first, he put off the meeting until September 5.

Now comes this rumour:

Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe has indicated he won't be available until Sept. 5, though sources told the Canadian Press on Thursday the two are meeting Friday.

Reuters is confirming that this meeting between Stephen Harper and Gilles Duceppe will be taking place:

In another sign of an imminent federal election, the leader of the opposition Bloc Quebecois agreed on Thursday to meet Prime Minister Stephen Harper this week to see if there was any common ground.

Duceppe will meet Harper at the prime minister's official residence on Friday.

Whoah!  Gilles Duceppe is making himself available? 

With that, Gilles Duceppe has rendered Stephane Dion irrelevant.

This means that next week Stephen Harper, having met with Layton and Duceppe, can say with some justification that he has heard enough, and that based on Stephane Dion's past behaviour (repeatedly threatening elections and then abstaining from votes), an election now is the best way to bring some measure of stability and predictability to government. 

Anything Stephane Dion would say with regards to supporting or defeating the government doesn't matter all too much, given Dion's record of backing down.

The meetings with Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe are the only ones that matter, and Stephane Dion has his record of repeated vote abstentions to blame for that.

Stephane Dion has a choice to make.  He can hold out for a meeting until September 9, a meeting that will never happen should Stephen Harper call for an election after having met with Layton and Duceppe. 

Choice #1: Stephane Dion -- the man who squandered yet another opportunity to affect the governance of this country.

Or Dion can rush over and have that meeting with Stephen Harper this weekend.

Choice #2: Stephane Dion -- the man who reacts instead of leads, waiting to see what the three other party leaders do, then doing the same thing.

Maybe when this is all over, the Liberal Party will go with another choice for leader altogether.