SWAG Government Falls; STYLE's RIddle Named New PM

**By Mark Wente, Mope and Wail**

*January 25, 2014*

                It was in the final moments of the House sitting today that everything was turned upside down for the SWAG government and Prime Minister Erik Koskela. SWAG held a strong majority government entering the House this morning, and throughout the day its caucus seemed to remain stable and loyal to the Prime Minister.

                But late in the day, Koskela’s control over his caucus began to visibly show, starting with the resignation of Jocelyn Tweedie as Minister of the Environment over questions of decorum in the House; she crossed the floor to sit as an independent. This move was followed shortly thereafter by Steven Hepburn, MP for Parry Sound-Muskoka, leaving the SWAG caucus along with eight other SWAG MPs to form the CLASS (Canadian Leaders Against Socialist Shenanigans) party in opposition to SWAG’s false claims to socialism.

                The real blow against the SWAG government, however, came when the Minister of Magic rose in the House during emergency debate on the repercussions for Canada from the formation of the new state of Frengland. Minister Michael Connolly introduced a government motion to declare war on the new state of Frengland. During the vote, the PM voted, on behalf of his caucus, *against*the motion, signifying in turn that his government had lost the confidence of the House. Whether the Prime Minister was aware of the implications of his vote at the time remains unclear today.

                Immediately after the vote, the Governor General met with the party leadership of all of the parties in the House, in the hopes of finding another leader who holds the confidence of the House. While these talks were ongoing, the Deputy Prime Minister commented that “we are looking into the Standing Order… We do not believe we have lost the confidence of the House” and that he believed SWAG to stay in government. Meanwhile STYLE MP Morgan Bell, MP for Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock and critic for Agriculture and Agri-food, declared the whole situation as showing “the ineptitude of the Prime Minister when he voted himself out of office” and suggested  that STYLE could form a competent new government.

                A short while after these statements, the Governor General announced that STYLE would in fact form government, with Julia Riddle named as the new Prime Minister. The new PM said that her rise to the top was “inevitable” given that “Toronto is, by far, superior to any other city in Canada.” She was evasive over whether STYLE would actually hold the highest number of seats in the House when it sits again tomorrow, and was evasive over whether there were coalition talks in process. Internal sources, however, revealed that some form of cooperation might be held with CLASS.

                The former Prime Minister did not take the fall of confidence lightly. “The government did not fall, we stood by the Queen,” he said, repeating that SWAG did not lose the confidence of the House. Later in the evening, Koskela made a public statement, declaring the Governor General’s ruling an “unprecedented attack on democracy”. He accused STYLE of being separatists, and said that “this is not over.” He also noted that SWAG is united and is “still committed to bettering the lives of all citizens in all parts of this nation.”

                Meanwhile, Shane ‘Shame’ Mackenzie, MP for Kitchener Centre, predictably started a new party.