We're having a difficult time getting bent out of shape over Prime Minister Stephen Harper's decision to prorogue parliament for the next couple months.

With the Winter Olympics just around the corner, it can hardly be a surprise to anybody that the Prime Minister chose to shut down Parliament for a couple months to allow the greatest athletes in the world to be the biggest news story in our country. We can recall reading months ago that the government would likely prorogue Parliament for a couple of months around the time of the Olympics.

Judging by the reaction of the opposition and some of the big media you could be forgiven for thinking that the Prime Minister shut down Parliament forever and had declared himself Dictator for Life.

We have come to accept that any time Prime Minister Harper makes any decision it will be greeted by a chorus of hyperbole from both the Opposition and the generally Conservative-hostile media. This is a fact of life in our country these days.

We've been mildly amused by the antics of some MPs who are demanding that Members of Parliament gather anyway to hold a "Parliament of the Willing."

However, the hyperbole being passed off as legitimate criticism of Harper's decision to prorogue Parliament has reached ridiculous proportions. The Opposition calling this decision a threat to the fundamentals of our democracy is completely insulting to all Canadians. It can't be that bad because neither NDP Leader Jack Layton, who is snorkeling in Belize, or Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, who is in Europe, have deemed it important enough to cut short their winter vacations.

A two-month suspension of Parliament while our country is hosting the Olympic Games hardly seems like a "threat to democracy" in our view. For Heaven's sake, Parliament has been prorogued for two months! Not two decades.

Do we really have to remind the Opposition parties that the current government is a minority and will have to present a Throne Speech to Parliament once a new session begins in a couple months? If this government is such a threat, the Opposition parties can team up at that time and defeat the present government and send Canadians to the polls.

The voters should not ignore the irony of this situation. The Opposition is accusing the government of "threatening our democracy" but it's the same Opposition that continues to keep this minority government in power.

Perhaps it's not the government the Opposition is afraid of, but the voters.