[LINK] "Harper government falls in historic Commons showdown "

[rfmcdonald]

Grand.

The second minority government of Stephen Harper has fallen.

Early Friday afternoon, 156 opposition MPs – all of the Liberals, New Democrats and Bloquistes present in the House of Commons – rose to support a motion of no-confidence.

It was also a motion that declared the government to be in contempt of Parliament for its refusal to share information that opposition members said they needed to properly assess legislation put before them.

When the cameras were trained elsewhere, several members crossed the green carpet that divides one side of the House from the other to embrace those in the parties opposite – political rivals who will spend the next six weeks of an election campaign castigating and belittling each other.

And the level of the rhetoric!

In the final moments of the Conservative government, there were many kind words of praise offered to Peter Milliken who, after a decade in the Speaker’s chair, was presiding over his last session before retirement.

But the debate that was heard across the country during the morning was as rancorous and vitriolic as Canadians have heard from the 40th Parliament, a session of government marked by the animosity expressed on all sides.

Shortly after 10 a.m., Mr. Ignatieff rose to “inform the House that the official opposition has lost confidence in the government.”

For the first time in Canadian history, he said, a committee of Parliament has found a government to be in contempt.

“We are the people’s representatives,” Mr. Ignatieff said. “When the government spends money, the people have a right to know what it is to be spent on. Parliament does not issue blank cheques.”

This week, the opposition-dominated procedure and House affairs committee found the government to be in contempt for failing to release information related to the costs of crime legislation and the purchase of stealth fighter jets.

“For four months, this House and the Canadian people were being stonewalled by this government and they are being stonewalled still,” Mr. Ignatieff said.

In response, Government Whip Gordon O’Connor was blunt in his assessment of the opposition. “When, during the election, a matter of ethics comes up, I would expect Liberal candidates to put bags on their heads.”

Of the Bloc, he said, it “basically has no function. They have no purpose. They are nothing.”

And with the NDP, Mr. O’Connor said, “there is drama, screaming, yelling, outrage. It voted against seniors. ... All I ever hear from its members is talk, talk, talk.”