Canadian politics has become rather interesting in the last week. Everyone’s been talking about it and it’s the topic of choice in social media circles. With the possibility of Canada’s minority government being replaced by a coalition government, bloggers, Twitterers and other social media types have been busy weighing in with their opinion on what’s happening.

You have to wonder if governments are paying attention to what’s happening in social media these days, and if they are, how seriously do they take it? Today, participating in social media is like sitting in the proverbial coffee shop. This is grassroots politics at its best.

“If you’re within the federal government or any provincial government without a social media plan and, despite that, are actively engaged in social media at the moment, you’re playing with fire in a room full of gun powder,” said Walter Schwabe, fusedlogic’s chief evolution officer.

That’s usually the way it is when you don’t have a plan. It’s one thing to be listening to the conversation, but it’s another thing to know how to engage with people in social media, especially if you’re in government.

It’s a good way to listen to what people are saying. Governments of all stripes have been accused of not listening to the public and they’ve got a great opportunity to do just that in social media.

What’s happening in the blogosphere?

It’s been interesting to hear all the differing perspectives on what’s happening with the Canadian political situation. NowPublic, the Vancouver-based citizen journalism site, had an interesting article with comment on the “black swan effect.” Hadn’t heard about that before

At the right leaning Small Dead Animals blog there’s been plenty of vitriol on both sides of the issue. If you’re interested in getting in a political debate/argument, then this is probably a good place to do it. There are a huge number of comments on the Stephane Dion video.

This popular Liberal blog, from Calgary as it happens, also has a great deal of debate about what’s been happening. Calgary’s not normally thought of as a location of any Liberals, or Alberta for that matter.

Canadian Parliament prorogued

The conversation has been pretty busy on Twitter too. If you do a search on Twitter for phrases like Dion, Harper, coalition or prorogue, you’ll find a lot of Tweets. It’s like political Nirvana right now. The fall has been great: Canadian election, U.S. election and now the Canadian crisis. What’s next?

The banter about Canadian politics is likely to slow down by the time the budget is read in Parliament in late January, but it ought to pick right up again. I’ll be curious to watch how the conversations change up to that time.

And who says Canadian politics is boring?