These days, the brown envelopes are piling up around my office like broken matchsticks on the floor of the Eddy factory. Only they're even more explosive!

I'm only telling you this so you can brace yourself. I'd feel bad if someone strained their heart or popped a gasket reading this blog.

This document was delivered to me at a late-night meeting in a downtown parking garage by a senior official of the Alberta Public Affairs Bureau, the world's largest single-client advertising and public relations agency. The PAB plans to release it to the media one day before Premier Alison Redford calls the next Alberta general election.

Some stories are just too complicated for ordinary bloggers to explain. That's when we turn to the expert knowledge offered by Perfesser Dave, the Answer Guy. Perfesser Dave knows practically everything there is to know about politics, economics and labour relations in Canada. In fact, if he were any smarter, he'd have to be hired by the Calgary School! You know, like Ted Morton, Tom Flanagan and Stephen Harper! If you have questions, don't ask me! Ask Perfesser Dave!

The people of Canada have spoken and it was the Liberal Party and the Bloc Quebecois to which they emphatically said "No!"

But, oddly enough, it is Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservatives who find themselves between a rock and a hard place.

Let me explain. As long as the Conservatives led a minority Parliament, they could tell their most radical supporters that, so sorry, they were unable to advance their far-right agenda because those perfidious Liberals, unpatriotic Bloquistes and annoying but insignificant New Democrats kept getting in the way.

I had an astonishing conversation with a Conservative Member of Parliament from Alberta last week.

The MP in question, who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty, was complaining to me about how the current federal election campaign seems to have gone right off the tracks. Thanks (in his opinion) to the news media's irresponsible fixation on matters of picayune consequence, all anyone wants to talk to him about was that darned Facebook fracas!

He, on the other hand, only wanted to deal with substantive issues, serious policy matters and high-minded discussion of the future of Canada, which is what a federal election campaign really ought to be about. Right?

Perfesser Tom Flannigan -- wiki-sanction advocate, Stephen Harper confidante, Firewall sovereignist and proud member of the taxpayer-supported "Calgary School" of loony right-wing political "science" -- recently wrote a

Canadian voters of all progressive stripes should thank the gods of politics that our prime minister is such an uncongenial, unbending and self-righteous person. Just imagine the damage a dogmatic neo-liberal radical like Stephen Harper could do if he didn't frighten voters so badly, or if he had the capability of treating his nominal friends in the mainstream media with anything but arrogance and contempt.

Instead, this man is simply disagreeable. He utterly lacks a common touch. Most attempts to humanize him, short of covering old Beatles tunes, instantly fall flat.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is said to have decided there will be no second five-year term for Governor General Michaelle Jean.

So, one way or another, Canadians might look to Alberta for hints of what could happen next as the prime minister gets down to picking her replacement.

Now, public opinion polls indicate Jean is generally popular among Canadians, so on the face of it, asking her to serve a second term makes sense.