It’s the nature of our parliamentary democracy for any political party to use whatever means possible they have to secure a government and the Conservatives continue to be in shock at the notion of losing the House just after they have won an election but they shouldn’t fear, a coalition government isn’t bad news for the Tories, in fact it’s odd that Prime Minister Stephen Harper hasn’t gracefully handed the reins of power over to the Liberal/NDP coalition.
There’s a certain advantage to being a Conservative in a two party political landscape, which is exactly what a coalition will define. If the Coalition controls the House of Commons the Tories would be well positioned to form a majority the next time round.
The next vote will have voters choose between the Tories on one side, and on the other side all the other parties, pretty much branded as one single “coalition”. Conversely the whole idea is a risky proposition for the NDP and the Liberals, but it may also be the natural evolution of the political process in Canada.
The present Prime Minister should be very familiar with political evolution since he was one of the architects of the present Conservative coalition between the Alliance, and Progressive Conservatives; and before that the Alliance was a coalition of Reform and others; and before that, Reform was a coalition of disgruntled Progressive Conservatives and fringe parties from the west.
When Preston Manning emerged from the founding meeting of the Reform Party he was considered a hero for uniting a western-based right wing alternative to the Progressive Conservatives.
It’s a ridiculous notion for anyone to be surprised, shocked or horrified at parties merging under the banner of a coalition in an attempt to outnumber the ruling party. And it’s even more of a surprise that some pundits are shocked at the Bloc Quebecois holding some sort of balance of power that would benefit Quebec and perhaps even the separatist cause.
How quickly we forget that the Progressive Conservatives helped give birth to the Bloc Quebecois when the Tory brainchild called the Meech Lake Accord was rejected by the provinces. Disillusioned with the rightwing coalition, most of Mulroney’s Quebec MP’s walked from the PC’s led by then Environment Minister Lucien Bouchard. Collectively they formed the sovereigntist Bloc Québécois, as a faction of disaffected, separatist federal MPs which would attract a variety of former Liberals and Conservatives.
Yes, separatists all of them, and given the spotlight by then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney who stated, “trusting Bouchard was my most regretful and costliest mistake as Prime Minister”.
However, like it or not the present BQ members are still Canadians and our democracy gives our citizens the right to support a separatist cause if they feel confederation isn’t working.
Provincially, in British Columbia, the Social Credit Party became a coalition of Liberal and Conservative supporters who became unhappy with their parties. As history unfolded the Socreds replaced those two old parties, and would eventually cause the NDP which was the only other party left in the legislature, to become secured as the official opposition party. This exclusive position would eventually find the NDP as the government, something that brought tears to the eyes of W.A.C Bennett. In BC that same coalition still remains, only it’s now in the form of the reinvented BC Liberals.
There’s a lot of irony in Canadian politics.
The only federal party in Canada which has escaped the coalition process has been the Liberal Party, which historically has been a catchment of politically centrist perspectives, but now it may be their turn to hit a political correction line where they embrace others in order to become a sustainable choice for voters.
Their present bedfellows the New Democrats are a modern product of a coalition of interests including the CCF which included farm and labour groups the Canadian Labour Congress and even the Christian left.
And what about those socialist hordes at the gate about to position themselves to over-run Canada’s federal government? The socialist brain trust has been operating within the Liberals and the NDP for a quarter of a century. Former premiers like Roy Romanow, Bob Rae, Ujjal Dosanjh, Howard Pawley, Mike Harcourt and Ed Schreyer who also served as our Governor General. Then there’s those other socialists hovering around like Ed Broadbent, Stephen Lewis and Thomas Berger one of the pre-eminent legal figures in the history of Canada.
A fearful bunch for sure, I’m shaking in my boots.
The process of a coalition surfacing to form a government is nothing new. It is a process that is defined by recognizing that whichever party or parties can construct a majority in the House of Commons will form the government.
Coalition governments are more the norm around the planet than they are an exception. In Germany, coalitions rarely consist of more than two parties, while in Belgium, where there are separate Dutch and French parties for each political grouping, coalition cabinets of up to six parties are quite common. India's present governing coalition, the United Progressive Alliance, consists of 13 separate parties. In Finland, no party has had an absolute majority in the parliament since independence. Japan is experiencing coalition governments since the 1990’s. In Australia, the conservative Liberal and National parties are united in an effectively permanent coalition.
In Canada there have been many examples of coalitions, and during the days leading up to the election this past fall both Jack Layton and Stephane Dion probably had regrets they didn’t enter into a coalition agreement when the Tories ignored there own fixed election date law and went ahead and called an election a year early and without a confidence motion.
It would not have been inconceivable for a coalition to surface between the Bloc and the Conservatives; there are mutual interests that have both parties with a keen sentiment towards securing regional autonomies.
In fact, past Opposition Leader Stephen Harper requested to the Governor General that if the Paul Martin government fell in 2004 that the opposition parties should be consulted to see if they could form a new government.
Blogger Kevin Grandia pointed out this fact the other day when he unearthed a Globe and Mail article which included an excerpt from a 2004 letter from Harper to the Governor General in which he states:
"We respectfully point out that the opposition parties, who together constitute a majority in the House, have been in close consultation. We believe that, should a request for dissolution arise this should give you cause, as constitutional practice has determined, to consult the opposition leaders and consider all of your options before exercising your constitutional authority."
At the time, the Liberals had 135 seats, the Conservative Party had 99 seats, the Bloc had 54 seats and the NDP had 19 seats. So when Harper said that "the opposition parties, who together constitute a majority," that included the Bloc Quebecois. He could not have formed a minority coalition government without the 54 Bloc seats.
The Harper-led Conservative Party is painting a Liberal and NDP coalition with the Bloc Quebecois as a deal with the devil that will "destroy Canada," which is a tone that we as Canadians should not tolerate and is placing fear into the population during a time when we should be addressing the economic crises.
The motivation linking together this new coalition is a common belief that our social safety net should be secured if the economy unravels; it’s during such times when we need to protect ordinary citizens the most. The entire coalition process inches the NDP and the Liberals closer together and it also blends policies which moves the political spectrum to the left ever so slightly, which could make for a better recipe when solving economic problems with the new Obama administration in the United States.
For the Tories their challenge will be to retain their coalition of the right as it has within it serious urban/rural splits which may begin to surface as the vultures begin to circle over Prime Minister Harper’s leadership.
Whether a change of government happens or not, the big question will be, what will these current events mean for the political and policy landscape here in the Okanagan Valley?
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Don Elzer writes and comments about the future, current affairs, lifestyle and the natural world. He is a director of the Watershed Intelligence Network publishers of The Monster Guide, which can be found at www.themonsterguide.com
He can also be reached by email at: treks@uniserve.com
