The Harper Government has already been found to be in contempt of Parliament, so why would it surprise us it's also in contempt of parliamentarians -- even those, or perhaps especially those, from its own party?

I speak, of course, of the brouhaha sparked by Mark Warawa, the Conservative Member of Parliament for Langley, B.C., who has asked House of Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer to rule that his Parliamentary privilege has been breached by Prime Minister Stephen Harper's suppression of his ability to speak to his private member's motion condemning sex-selection abortions.

Maybe I've just spent too much time hanging around the dojo, but I don't think most Canadians would have been particularly troubled if Opposition Leader Thomas Mulcair had planted a well-placed social democratic boot on Conservative House Leader Peter Van Loan's ample behind yesterday afternoon.

Alert readers will by now be aware that Van Loan waddled across the two-and-a-quarter-sword-lengths aisle of the House of Commons burbling imprecations and dropping F-Bombs at the NDP's unfailingly gentlemanly House Leader, Nathan Cullen, apparently because Cullen had failed to jump high enough, fast enough to comply with the Harperites' authoritarian urges.

Proving you really can have it both ways, Premier Alison Redford's Alberta Tories rapped the knuckles of their federal counterparts yesterday but kept their most dangerous enemies, members of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Wild Rose Country caucus, where they can keep an eye on them.

Redford Government insiders were furious so many of their federal brethren, including several prominent Alberta MPs, openly backed the market-fundamentalist Wildrose Party led by Danielle Smith in last spring's provincial general election, which despite the premier's comfortable majority once the dust had settled was a close-run thing.

Like Sir John A. Macdonald, a British subject I was born and now, apparently, a British subject I may die. What's with that?

Or did I fail to get it right yesterday that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his gang of so-called Conservatives have decided to give up he trappings of independent nationhood and, just as the Scots are about to head out for the Highlands, go in with the British on a joint-venture diplomatic service?