Prime Minister Harper gave his throne speech yesterday, opening a brand new legislative session of the Canadian parliament. Per convention, the first item on the agenda was the approval of his speech, and thus parliamentary assent to his mandate to govern. Failure to approve would be a vote of no-confidence, and trigger an emergency election.

The Bloc Quebecois and the NDP had no problem with this. They hated his speech, as they had decided well before hearing it, and announced they would vote it down. All eyes then turned to Mr. Dion, leader of the Liberal Party. Only his party had enough people to make or break the vote.

No one knew what his decision would be, but this morning Mr. Dion rose in the House and declared that he would in fact support the throne speech, despite his reservations. Canadians do not want an election at this time, he declared. So that's the end of that... for now.