A strategic blunder! Possibly even a fatal blunder. There’s no other way to describe it politically and I’m not talking about President Obama. That can wait for another column.

No, I’m talking about a guy that considers himself a great political strategist and often is. A guy who is very intelligent, aggressive and knows how exploit his opponent’s weakness. Despite this, he has never been able to quite grab the gold ring and now he may have ruined his chances forever.

I’m talking, of course, about Stephen Harper.

It all began on News Year’s Eve or thereabouts. Harper picked up his phone – I don’t know if it was the red one – and called Governor General Michaelle Jean and told her he wanted Parliament prorogued, not a word I was terribly familiar with I admit. However my trusty Complete Oxford tells me prorogue means “to discontinue the meeting” of Parliament in this case. And just like that, the dirty deed was done and 36 bills Parliamentarians were working on were flushed down the toilet including bills on crime, the economy, consumer protection, you name it.

And to add insult to injury, this isn’t the first time Harper has pulled off this stunt. The previous time was barely a year ago when he did the same thing to avoid being defeated on a non-confidence motion. Is this a pattern emerging?

On the first occasion Harper didn’t deny he was trying to save his skin and the skin of the Conservative Party when he put the rookie Governor General in the excruciatingly, uncomfortable position of giving an assent to his act of political expediency in order to avoid an election nobody wanted. This time, there isn’t even that thin veneer of political justification.

Revelations were coming out of the Afghan Committee that were embarrassing the government and making the sacred Afghanistan Mission appear as something less than noble. Possibly even criminal, although we may never know because with the proroguing of Parliament the committee is no longer meeting.

But this didn’t bother our flinty-eyed leader, who likes to fashion himself as a bit of a military man himself and never made any secret of his support for the George Bush style of engaging the infidels. But while all Canadians grieve for our soldiers dying at the hands of an enemy they seldom see, their support for the war itself is lukewarm at best and falling steadily.

Then there is the issue of democracy itself. What kind of democracy do we have when it can be prorogued on a whim by a leader who says he needs time off to “recalibrate.” Isn’t that the job of Parliament and the members of all parties?

Well, the chickens are coming home to roost. An EKOS poll released Thursday shows the governing Conservatives and the Liberals in a dead heat with the Liberals a fraction of a point ahead. That’s quite an accomplishment Mr. Prime Minister. You’ve made Michael Ignatieff popular again.

But Harper’s blunder has also affected the grass roots. Just after the New Year, I interviewed MP Jim Abbott about the proroguing of Parliament and did a story where Abbott dutifully repeated the party line on the issue. I didn’t think it would go any farther than that when at least three letters came in blasting both Abbott and the Prime Minister. Now criticizing Stephen Harper is one thing, but not many in this neck of the woods criticize Jim Abbott.

They’ve got to be awfully angry to do that.

Since then, a Calgary university student has started a Facebook petition against proroguing that now has more than 250,000 names on it and last weekend there were anti-proroguing demonstrations all across Canada attended by thousands.

Could this be the start of something? I don’t know, but if I was Stephen Harper I’d be watching my back.

Canadians might be in an angry mood after the Olympics when Parliament gets down to work again and the extended Christmas holiday is finally over You can’t “prorogue” your credit card bill when its due and neither should an arrogant Prime Minister be able to prorogue Parliament.