Why are we having this election, again?

I never bought the mantra that "Stephen Harper has a hidden agenda". Every party's got a hidden agenda--to gain power, then keep it--and some of them (Liberals) are better at it than others, is all. But as for destroying the country and sabotaging "Canadian values" (whatever they are) and pitchforking newborn babies for the giant Conservative Barbeque on Parliament Hill...uh, sorry, buddy, you're not just barking up the wrong tree, you're in the wrong forest.

(Likewise Dion doesn't intend to "screw everybody" with his carbon tax, in Harper's memorable phrasing. I have some problems with the idea, in that higher fuel prices rippling down through the consumer chain act as their own carbon tax and I hardly think we need another...but the idea is bold and should be openly debated, not mischaracterized and smeared. You won't hear Harper even acknowledging that Dion intends to cut income taxes.)

Anyway, I kind of got to wondering the other day. Harper's led a minority government with Dion's tacit and often bewildering co-operation. Time after time ol' Steve would try to plant a confidence bomb, only to have Dion politely abstain, or rig the vote so it just barely passed. In effect, the Conservatives can almost be said to have run a majority government for the last tw0-plus years. In the end, the PM had to loudly declare Parliament "dysfunctional" and blow it up, dissolving his own law in the process. I naively hoped we might get some inkling as to why by now. 

There's got to be a reason beyond "winning conditions". I'm sure Harper isn't dumb enough to think that anyone's polling numbers at the start of a campaign will hold up to the end. And as for Parliament being dysfunctional, I'd say the only thing dysfunctional about it is that for the last year or so we haven't had an Official Opposition. Anything else he's kvetching about is his own doing. Like that book outlining how to paralyze Parliament, brought to you by the Conservative Party of Canada. 

If Stephen Harper hasn't been able to get his agenda implemented, it sure isn't for lack of Liberal assistance. So, much as I hate to, I gotta ask: Steve, what's on that agenda of yours? Could all those paranoids be right? Is there something in there so shocking you haven't dared to let it slip, and you won't until you get that blessed majority?

Tell you this, friends and neighbours: whatever it is, it doesn't have anything to do with a halving of the excise tax on diesel fuel or the commitment to pull out of Afghanistan in 2011. (Last I looked, that was already agreed upon by all parties. Mr. Harper, how dumb do you think we are?)