Canada's Government on Brink of Total Collapse
Opposition Parties Agree on Coalition Plan to Oust Harper as PM
Stéphane Dion led the federal Liberal Party to its worst election defeat in more than a century less than two months ago in the Oct. 14th Canadian election, but he still might soon become Canada's 23rd Prime Minister.
But How?
It would seem that Stephen Harper has fallen into the same hole that Joe Clark fell into in 1979. That was the last time a Conservative Prime Minister had a minority government that tried to govern as if it had a majority.
The move to form a coalition of opposition parties was prompted by a Conservative economic statement that made no mention of a stimulus package for the ailing manufacturing sector.
Instead, the statement included such partisan and ideological power plays as the removal of the $1.95-a-vote subsidy for political parties that opposition rely on for basic funding (the Liberals are still millions of dollars in debt from their latest unsuccessful election campaign) and a ban on civil-service strikes for three years.
Out-of-touch PM Might Soon be Out of a Job
Roy MacGregor hit the nail squarely on the head when he called Mr. Harper one of the most out-of-touch politicians in Canadian history after the prime minister suggested that holding another election is the only way to settle the issue properly.
Harper has truly lost his connection to the people if he thinks that Canadians would be willing to go to the polls for a fourth time in as many years, after they showed up to vote in record low numbers barely two months ago. If he thinks he might actually fare well asking Canadians to participate in such an excessive and futile electoral exercise, then he is out of touch with political reality as well.
Incidentally, the last election campaign cost the country $300 million as the economy stood on the precipice of massive financial fallout. The Tory plan to cut public funding of political parties would have saved $30 million dollars from a budget of $240 billion.
Harper has called the notion of appointing Stéphane Dion as interim-prime minister of a Liberal-NDP coalition government “un-democratic.” Considering that voters roundly rejected the notion of a government led by the Dion’s Liberal Party in October, he might have a point. The Conservatives have already organized a series of ‘Support Canadian Democracy’ protests nationwide over the coming days in order to hammer this point home.
Though it is worth noting that the Liberal and New Democratic Parties combined won more votes than Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party in the October 14th poll.
Combined with a promise to support the political partnership for at least 18 months from Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe, the December 1st agreement would grant the Liberal-led coalition a de facto majority government in the House of Commons.
The deal would have the Liberal Party retain 18 of 24 cabinet posts (including the all-important role of finance minister) and members of the New Democratic Party being appointed to the remaining six.
Canada has only seen a coalition government once before at the federal level. During World War I, then-Prime Minister Robert Borden formed the Union Government with willing opposition MPs in order to win the 1917 federal election and pass the Military Services Act, which temporarily made military service mandatory.
Rumors suggesting that Michael Ignatieff, the current frontrunner for the Liberal leadership, would lead Canada’s first coalition government in 91 years, turned out to be false when a coalition agreement was reached on December 1st. Stephane Dion would serve as prime minister for at least five months until May of 2009, when the Liberal Party will choose his successor at the party’s next Leadership Convention in Vancouver.
One Card Left to Play
Many have derided the opposition’s plans to unseat the Prime Minister as juvenile and unfair.
“This is what bullies in a schoolyard do when they can’t win a fight fair and square – gang up,” read one reader’s comment on The Globe and Mail’s website.
At this point, the only way Stephen Harper can hold onto his job would be to prorogue the house, suspending the current parliamentary session until the new year and denying the opposition of the chance to display their lack of confidence in his government. Thus evoking the constitutional equivalent of calling a ‘time-out’ in the middle of a schoolyard fight.
The non-confidence vote is scheduled for December 8th. Harper has until then to decide.
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