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A year ago, the three federal opposition parties were on the cusp of taking down the ruling Conservatives.
Working with the "separatists" and the "socialists" (as the Conservatives put it), those natural governors, the Liberals, had put together a power-sharing agreement.
Under that deal, the Liberals would govern with the help of the NDP (including cabinet posts), surely delighted to be of assistance.
Meanwhile, the Bloc Quebecois would not officially be part of the coalition, but would generally support it on the important stuff. Presumably, those Bloc votes did not come for free.
The Conservatives, obviously, were not having any of it. The game ended when Prime Minister Stephen Harper made his title count and asked Governor General Michaelle Jean to prorogue, or postpone, Parliament.
He was right, at least in a tactical sense.
The Liberals, Bloc, and NDP had always been distinct entities, and then-Liberal leader Stephane Dion was not the strongman who could bring them together.
The coalition did not survive the break, and Dion's career did not survive the coalition.
How one felt about the (would-be) coalition efforts to replace the Conservatives tended to align with one's political leanings.
After all, such a power-sharing agreement was a constitutionally acceptable alternative to the Conservative minority.
But then again, the parties did not suggest it until over a month after the October 2008 election. And the Tories, if not the outright winners in that election, clearly had a credible case for governing.
Mind you, that was not until the Conservatives brought forward a plan to end taxpayer subsidies for political parties, denting their opponents' coffers while leaving their own largely intact.
Plus we are Canadian, so should that not mean we want members of Parliament to co-operate, and was that not happening in front of our very eyes?
And so on and so on. There are plenty of ambiguities, no?
We argued then in these very pages that the coalition was "hijacking democracy", ignoring the will of the people, just expressed in a beefier, if not yet robust, Tory mandate.
That was then.
Last Dec. 30, Harper again asked Jean to prorogue Parliament until March, meaning that the House of Commons will not debate or vote again as a group until then.
The prime minister said the extra time is necessary to prepare the upcoming budget. Perhaps this is sincerely his reasoning, though we have our doubts.
Unfortunately, shutting down Parliament for two months will eliminate the kind of discussion and compromise that could improve the budget, too.
In fact, one may argue that the meeting of Parliament is one of the cornerstones of our democratic process, which the Conservatives are now "hijacking", if you will.
The last time Harper asked for prorogation, the House of Commons was chaotic and unproductive, the kind of place that needed a time out (as called for by a responsible, prime-ministerial type).
He only wishes he had that excuse this time.
