Among Canadian democratic institutions, the Senate is arguably the most controversial and, for many Canadians, the least understood. With legislation to reform the Senate once again before Parliament, the Centre will be holding a debate to discuss what, if anything, is wrong with the Senate of Canada, whether it should be reformed and, if so, by what means. Debaters: Senator Hugh Segal; Senator James S.

We just posted a new opinion poll. Make sure to head on over and post your vote on whether we should update O'Canada to remove gender specific language.

Richard Albert, over at ThePolitic.com, interviews past Liberal Party of Canada leadership candidate and current member or Parliament for riding of Willowdale, Martha Hall Findlay.

One question asked by Richard concerning why Ignatieff is a better leader for Canada than the current prime minister, brought this response:

Michael Ignatieff is better than Stephen Harper for a number of reasons, but first and foremost relates to my last answer.

Jonathan McLeod, a colleague of mine over at ThePolitic.com, recently got a chance to interview Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada. Apparently, Ms. May is quite the fan of former leader of the Saskatchewan New Democratic Party and Premier of Saskatchewan.

The Hill Times recently published an interesting editorial, very similar incidentally to a posting her at MLW by Harold Jansen, titled, Ignatieff’s committing political euthanasia - If a party has to commit political suicide to defend its credibility, it means there’s not much of it left in the party. In the article Andelo Persichilla comments:

I see two major problems afflicting the Liberals.

Tom Flanagan in today’s Globe and Mail argues for the end of the “per-vote” subsidy given to federal political parties in Canada.

Third, Canada could consider a taxpayer check-off system of the type found in the United States at the federal level and in 41 states. The basic idea is that taxpayers, when filing annual returns, can tick a box indicating a political contribution.

Raphael Alexander ponders that impact of blogging under your REAL name, rather than using a pseudonym to remain anonymous:

Helen Forsey, the daughter of the late eminent constitutional scholar, Eugene Forsey, weighs in on what her father would have had to say about the constitutional "crisis" in December. It's a worthwhile refresher course on the principles of parliamentary government, especially in a minority government situation. You can read it here.

Yesterday, Elections Canada issued the fourth quarter financial returns for political parties in 2008. In November, party finance became headline news when the Conservatives tried to remove the annual subsidy for political parties in the economic update. Party finance  is usually not a sexy topic and has since faded from the headlines. But the release of the new numbers is exciting for those of us who study and are obsessed by the finances of Canada's political parties (I think there are three of us).

Although the budget may not look very conservative, its long run impact is very consistent with the goal of a smaller, leaner federal government.  In that way, the budget is very consistent with Harper's incremental conservatism.

And it all comes down to this: budget day! Things in Canadian politics have been pretty slow over the last month or so. But today we see the budget that will determine not only the way the government responds to the recession we're experiencing, but also the future of the Liberal-NDP coalition. The NDP and the BQ have pretty much indicated that they oppose the budget and want the coalition to proceed. Since Michael Ignatieff has become the leader, he's been decidedly cooler about the coalition idea than his predecessor, Stephane Dion. It seems clear to me that the Liberals are going to support the budget. There's enough there that they can take credt for and support and not enough to justify bringing down the government.

The federal government is going to unprecedented lengths to offer Canadians a preview of Tuesday' budget.  Proponents claim the move will allow Canadians to digest all of the specific measures in manageable bites, while opponents say the government is trying to get all of the "bad news" out of the way early.   Either way, a series of weekend press conferences and television appearances have let several cats out of the bag, and we expect even more announcements today.  Here's a running list of what (not) to look for in the upcoming Throne Speech and Budget:

Andrew Steele has written a strange article describing potential successors for Stephen Harper as Conservative leader should the government be defeated in January. I doubt that Harper is in any real danger even if he does lose a confidence vote - there are no formal mechanisms to remove him as leader in the short term and no other candidate has anything resembling Harper's rock-solid base of support within the party. 

What about the coalition?  What can we learn, tactically, from their performance?

Hindsight is 20/20, and a backseat driver is always the best judge of the road.  For what it's worth, here's my view of the past few weeks, as seen out the rear windshield.  Part I:  What lessons can we learn from the Conservatives?