I Like Opposition Line, LPC Particularly

I just hope this is firm OLO view & as much of a consensus view in caucus as it is in the membership - Star highlights: "The Liberals say they will soon launch a national campaign to bring attention to Harper's actions. Liberal plans include an 11-stop speaking tour by Leader Michael Ignatieff starting Jan. 11. "We as a party are certainly going to provide alternatives. Yeah, we are going to take the issue on the road. Definitely," Rae said. (...) This kind of imperial prime ministership has got to come to an end," he said. The opposition parties also hope to put a focus on the Conservatives' refusal to show up to work, unlike the rest of Canadians. "More dramatically our troops aren't proroguing. We are in the middle of a very difficult conflict in Afghanistan and nobody is adjourning there," Rae said.
(...previous)
"Harper can try to shut down public business but he can't shut down politics. The engagement with the public will continue," Liberal MP Bob Rae (Toronto Centre) said Friday.

"It is something that Canadians are offended by and I think the Tory assumption is that it is just going to evaporate," Rae, the party's foreign affairs critics, said.
(...)
Both the Liberals and the New Democrats told the Toronto Star it is time the rules were changed so a single-minded prime minister cannot suspend Parliament on a whim.

"I don't believe we can continue with the kind of one-man show, unilateral decisions about when and how Parliament meets and what it does. This has to be subject to a greater sense of rule of law rather than the rule of whim," Rae said.

"We need a new set of rules to limit the power of one person to dictate the course of Parliament. This kind of imperial prime ministership has got to come to an end," he said

NDP leader Jack Layton said Harper can't be allowed to run Canada like some kind of "tinpot" state with little regard for democracy.

"I met two people (in Toronto on Friday) who volunteered to me the following observation: `I left a country where they did that,'" said Layton, who noted a grassroots movement on Facebook called Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament.

NDP MP Paul Dewar (Ottawa Centre) said even Conservative supporters "are quietly appalled" by Harper's open "contempt" for the democratic process.