Parliamentary Drama

By BJ

Politics in the Great White North has become quite interesting in the last few days.  Just six weeks removed from our own federal election, and we may be looking at a change in government.

The Liberals and New Democrats signed an agreement on Monday to form an unprecedented coalition government, with a written pledge of support from the Bloc Québécois, if they are successful in ousting the minority Conservative government in a coming confidence vote.

The Conservatives under Stephen Harper recently broke their own election law in an attempt to win a majority before the effects of the worldwide economic slowdown and their own profligate waste of the Liberal surplus they inherited became apparent.  They failed, but still spun their slightly increased minority standing as a great victory and acted as though they had received a major mandate.

It is the second part that has gotten them into trouble.  Increased minority or no, they are still a minority, and thus require the cooperation of at least some of the opposition members in order to pass any legislation.  Instead of attempting to build some kind of consensus, Harper and the Conservatives decided to gamble that the other parties wouldn’t want to risk another election so soon after the previous one.

The tactic had worked quite well for Harper in the previous parliament, with the Liberals usually the ones abstaining from votes so that the government wouldn’t fall, and very likely Harper believed the same tactic would serve him just as well this time around, particularly with the Liberal Party stuck in the middle of a campaign to select a new leader.

However, whether it was the memory of the repeated cave-ins to the Conservative bullying of the previous parliament, the repeated attacks of the last campaign, or just the act that the Conservatives seem as clueless and unwilling to provide any more direction on the economic crisis than their lame-duck co-ideologist still warming the chair in the White House, this time around the opposition parties have decided to call Harper’s bluff.

And instead of playing Harper’s game of either caving in to his demands or forcing an election, the opposition parties have hit upon a third option that the parliamentary system leaves open to them; defeating the Conservative government with a vote of no-confidence and forming a new government with a coalition of the Liberals and NDP.

This is a highly unusual occurrence, but not entirely unprecedented.  The same thing occurred at the provincial level in Ontario in he mid-80’s, where the Tories had won the most seats, but were defeated in the first confidence vote of the new legislature by the combined Liberal and NDP members, who then formed a coalition government that governed for a couple of years beyond that.

Harper and the Conservatives are squealing at the unexpected gall of the opposition parties using the rules of parliament this way, and have sent out talking points for their supporters to flood the airways to bitch about it.  Of course, Stephan Harper himself had a very different view of such tactics when he was in on the other side of the aisle to a Liberal minority.

Things were to come to a head today, but Harper has managed to use procedural rules to push off the confidence votes, (another thing he used to be against).  From the CBC story linked at the beginning of this post, it is also feared that Harper may prorogue parliament, or suspending it without dissolving it.  Such a move would delay the vote until after the holidays, but Harper would need the approval of the Governor-General to do it.

So far, all Harper has managed to do is give the Liberals, NDP, and the Bloc time to formalize their coalition plans.  For all the Conservative screaming about how this is “an attack on democracy”, it should be noted that the opposition parties combined for 63% of the vote six weeks ago to the Conservatives 37%.  If the opposition can agree on policy positions, it is they who have the majority of Canadians on their side. 

Still, I can’t help but be stunned by how quickly Harper’s arrogance has managed to unite the opposition parties together.  The Conservatives economic update announcement was on Thursday and the first rumblings of a coalition began Friday.  With a formal agreement in place, this now has a momentum all its own.

It’s going to be an interesting week.

Comments

[Hyperion]

does Harper somehow see himself as GWB?