Tense

Yesterday, Parliament reconvened after the "time out" that the Prime Minister requested in December.

Today, the Finance Minister officially releases the budget he's been leaking to the world over the past few days.

Tomorrow, the new Liberal Leader, Michael Ignatieff, will decide whether he can support the budget, thereby deciding whether this government continues or Canada has another election--three months after its last election.

The mood here isn't much like the mood in the U.S. at the moment. Most of the people in the U.S., with the notable exception of Rush Limbaugh, are at least hopeful that the new administration can help resolve some of the economic and other issues.

Up here, people are nervous, and understandably so. Prime Minister Harper hasn't yet put forward a position--or a law--that he can't simply ignore when he feels like it. He ran on the principle of reforming the Senate to make it an elected body--and then appointed 18 senators during this recent "time out." (Never mind his "law" about the date of the election next fall, which he ignored in the hope of getting a majority in the October election.) So whatever financial principles he once espoused may, or may not, have any bearing on what's actually in the budget.

That may be "politics as usual" everywhere. "Everyone knows" that the exigencies of office are different from the rhetoric of the campaign trail--and that's true in the U.S. as well as up here.

However, up here, optimism about the future is noticeably lacking in public discourse. The one response to politics from most people I see, not that I initiate political discussions but it does come up at the gym and elsewhere, is that universal commentary familiar to teenagers and parents everywhere: the eyeroll.

People here generally lack respect for politicians with a vehemence that has been suspended, possibly temporarily, in the U.S. The thing is, we all WANT to respect our elected officials, even if we don't like them and even if we didn't vote for them.

But I have to say, politicians on this side of the border have their work cut out for them. I'm not sure what it would take to get Canadians optimistic. But I know that having the adults of the Obama Administration working away south of the border make the childish behavio(u)r up here look that much worse.

So here's a little advice to all those in Ottawa: solve the needs of Canadians. Shut up already about the shortcomings of the other parties and the moral high ground your party pretends to occupy. Canadians are losing jobs, homes--and hope.