Ciao, Stephen. Come stai?

Perhaps we should all be taking Italian lessons. Not only would this make us seem sexier --­ and who among us could not use a little of that? --­ but it would also help us to be more comfortable with the new style of Canadian government.
Like Italy, we are gridlocked in an era of perpetual minority governments, in which every political party seems content with the status quo. Unlike Italy, our Prime Minister is not all that interesting, although I'm not suggesting that Stephen Harper adopt the lifestyle of Silvio Berlusconi.
It would make life in Canada a bit more intriguing though, wouldn't it? Imagine if our national symbols during the Olympic extravaganzas had been runway models, wine and extravagant dinners, instead of wheatfields, maple leaves and whales.
The beavers work either way, of course. I digress.
The Italian connection comes, not with playboy Prime Ministers, but through our descent into permanent Parliamentary deadlock. It would be easy to blame this on Harper --­ everything is easy to blame on Harper, come to think of it --­ but probably unfair.
Harper is at least interested in being in power, and he has been uniquely successful at attaining and maintaining that objective. To watch him lead the country, you might not even realize that he is the leader of a minority government, which could fall at the whim of the Opposition.
Compare his efforts to that of a Conservative predecessor, Joe Clark, also PM in a minority, also eager to lead as though he had real power, and gone in the blink of Pierre Tudeau's eye.
It's not all Harper's doing though, and this is why I think we may be in real trouble. Sure, Harper prorogued Parliament... but the MPs did come back, and have been in the House for weeks now. The Opposition raised verbal hell about Harper's move, but once they were back in their seats in the Chamber, did anyone move a vote of non-confidence because of Harper's tactic?
Nope.
Do any of the opposition parties have any intention of defeating the government?
Nope.
Is this because they have genuine faith in the Conservatives and their agenda? Actually, that would be refreshing, wouldn't it? Once upon a time, the Leader of the Opposition would actually support an action of the government, because it was patently the right thing to do. All of that sense of cooperation is long gone from our Parliament.
The real reason the opposition won't take action is because they like things just the way they are, completely for their own purposes. This has nothing to do with what is right for Canada --­ it is all about what works for the parties.
The Liberals continue to struggle, and are unwilling to face any kind of election. They would probably not do better, they might do worse (the Conservatives are again climbing in the polls), and so, what they have is maybe the best they can hope for. So Ignatieff once again becomes a source of sound and fury signifying nothing.
The NDP know that the Conservatives have somehow managed to occupy the political middle ground while retaining the right, and that the Liberals --­ if they are to achieve any success at all ­-- will need to poach as much left wing support as they can. So the NDP are squeezed, and this, coupled with their leader's health battle, leave them uninterested in any political conflict.
And the Bloc? Their cause is lost, but their jobs are secure, and so it is all about drawing salaries and eventual pensions from a country they don't believe in. Nothing could be fairer than that.
If this was all working, who could complain? But precious little is being done (did you see that the feds were unable to spend half of the infrastructure money they allocated last year, ending the year with over a billion dollars in surplus in that department?)
I'm signing up for Italian lessons, today.