If it turns out a signatory is operating in bad faith, (fingers crossed), then whatever expectations of legal redress that party expected, under any form of common law are negligible.

The evidence is apparent and formidable that at least one or more opposition leaders took just such a tact. To suppose they should be rewarded with power of any sort for such defiant duplicity is absurd.

That PM Harper ‘baited’ the parties was low but not unexpected given the discovery and proof of bad faith.
I only hope that Canadians place more emphasis on truth and rule of law than on personal feelings of distrust or dislike. I personally am offended by many of PM Harpers actions, but can hardly contain my disgust at the ideologue driven comments here and elsewhere.

The one salient consideration is this. Canadians are NOT homogenous! Nor are we likely to ever be. In fact with increased immigration, the diversity of thought and opinion is bound to increase.

To expect Canadians (any Canadians) to just roll over and give IT up, is foolishness. IT is one of the marks by which we identify ourselves in the global community. IT of course is our own high opinion of our own high opinion.

We need to stop trying to force our opinions on everyone else based on ideological differences,

State your point. Let others do the same. Then stand back.
To hurl epithets and insults ad nauseum, demeans the medium.
Most really intelligent people can’t be bothered with blogs for this very reason. They tend to be full of pedantic unreasoning blather.

Myabe blogs really do represent the true fabric of this country. If so……..

Primegood

In general, in Canada, the only way we would expect to see a coalition is in a circumstance like this: the party with the most seats clearly no longer has the confidence of the house, so the Governor General asks them to no longer form government, but it’s so soon after an election (and the possibility of an alternate government is clear) that the coalition is more clearly indicative of the will of the people than a reelection.

Eric: I wish the GOP HAD proposed to repeal McCain-Feingold in 2007. Bush himself said he thought it was unconstitutional but he very unwisely shirked his responsibilitly to veto it when it was passed, thinking the Supreme Court would do it for him. If McCain-Feingold had been repealed it would have been a victory for freedom of speech. Oh well.

T.: It is very interesting that a budget motion is a motion of confidence. The mind boggles trying to imagine how that would work down here, where it is routine for the “loyal opposition” to declare the President’s budget bill “dead on arrival”, sometimes before the White House even releases it!

Stephen Harper attempted to ignore that directive from Canadians, and may eventually pay a price for it, losing government to a couple of parties that have understood that directive.

This is typically followed with an election, but because the other parties have gotten together and said, “We don’t believe the current government can do a good job, but we’ve got this guy (Dion) who we think can”, the Governor General may decide to avoid calling an election and giving a shot to the other guy to run things. This is much more likely to happen if we’ve just had a recent election, as we did.

The fact that FPTP frequently delivers false majorities, and does so so frequently that we assume that a minority government is an unusual affair, merely obscures the truth that most of the time, not a majority of the country votes for any one party, and so they must cooperate.

David – There are three sides to why this has triggered outrage. The first one has to do with the fact that the subsidy is a generally well regarded tool for reducing the influence of outside money from politics. It’s much like our equivalent of McCain-Feingold, only not so useless. ;) Imagine your GOP coming to the table in early 2007 (with a Democratic Congress & Bush) with a proposal to eliminate McCain-Feingold.

The second one has to do with the current situation of the parties. The other biggest party, our Liberals, have recently come out of some fairly turbulent times. Not necessarily turbulent times they didn’t earn, but nonetheless a recent historical fact. In addition, the funding and votes of the other parties are diluted by FPTP; the left is split, the right currently is not. In the past it’s been the other way around at times. So they’re sitting there with full cupboards and proposing “Let’s all emargo the grocery store!” The other parties, not having full cupboards at the moment, said “Um – no!” Thus, whether or not you believe that the subsidy is inappropriate (and perhaps that we should indeed be embargoing the grocery store in favour of the farmer’s market), the timing of the move made it extremely partisan and offensive in any event.

And the third one is that if they simply voted down the proposal, without first making it apparent that they were willing to step up as a coalition, then by our conventions we’d be going straight back into an election. Defeating a bill like that means that the government no longer has the confidence of the house and must resign. Alternately, they could have voted down the proposal and then tried to pitch a coalition then and there, after the fact as it were, which while technically proper would simply be stupid. (Analogy, perhaps, to knowing that you ought to pass an unpopular measure in your House, but don’t have the votes for it, and putting it to the floor anyway so that your own people can lose face with no other effect.) So they did it the reasonable and proper way… instead of bursting out with “Go to hell!” they said, “What!!? Hang on a sec – okay, we propose to add ‘Go to hell!’ to the agenda.”

If Harper had truly wanted to work within the constraints of being a minority government, then to eliminate the vote subsidy he’d have talked to the other parties and found one who liked his approach well enough to support it. For example, it might have been proposed as a gradual phasing-out with some kind of replacement mechanism to take its place. But he simply proposed cold turkey. It’s like the libertarian line: “No more apporpriations by force, starting… now!” Thus it was obvious to all that he was not trying to run a minority government.

This wasn’t surprising, as he hasn’t really run his previous minority government like one either. He’s tried to run it like a majority, unilaterally putting things forward and daring anyone to defeat him on them. It’s literally been like a manager whose firm can’t really afford his golden parachute walking into each meeting with a resignation letter in hand, and saying “This is how it’s gonna be.”

This coalition is simply the other managers saying, “Okay, dude, enough. We accept. G’bye. We’ll take over. Larry, you handle his accounts; Bob, you take over the Ops stuff he was running; Jake, you help with the rest of the workload. Security, please show this gentleman the door.”

So – the vote subsidy isn’t the issue. The approach is. The vote subsidy was simply the vehicle Harper chose to use, to say “f*ck you all” to the other parties.

And that’s not even getting into the fact that it was supposedly part of a “stimulus” package which was both miniscule, unfunded (billions in unspecified cuts, etc), and was in fact in belt-tightening package (Hoovernomics) in the current economic climate, not a stimulus at all. Every macroeconomist who’s looked at it has simply winced and tried to look away.

The Conservatives proposed eliminating the party subsidy. (As a US citizen: That’s sounds right to me.) This apparently caused the opposition to go nuclear. But, what’s the big deal? If the Conservatives are a minority government couldn’t the opposition simply have voted down that proposal?

Please explain! Thank you! — David

In a way that would make Machiavelli proud, Harper decided to make a stand for power in the house immediately instead of waiting for the coalition to surprise Canada. Harper offered up a poison chalice of policies that would be simply unpalatable to the opposition. The media sees this as a tactical mistake by Harper but it’s far from that. The clues and evidence are everywhere to support this back room story. The public financing of political parties was used as an instrument to draw a line in the sand right from the start of this parliament to determine power for months ahead. So he did this to draw the coalition into the public domain and make a stand on the hill so to speak.

In Harper’s Machiavellian mind he needed to get command of the house by breaking the coalition and forcing the opposition to work with his Government or he was going to have another dysfunctional house. The opposition parties have an important role to play but all they want to do is play politics with Harper because of a lack of respect for him as a leader of Canada. This is because the personality clash between Harper and Layton/Dion is so stunningly massive that they simply can’t work together. The best thing that could have happened was for Dion to have resigned day 1 and a new liberal leader installed to work with Harper. Dion is the antagonist in this story because he has yet to accept his defeat in the last election. This is a major character flaw of Dion and why he can’t be Prime Minister. Layton is not intelligent enough to even know what’s going on as he spends all his time looking in the mirror and talking to himself. He’s never met a microphone that he hasn’t liked. Layton needs to use his time offering up concrete proposals and he will earn the respect of the house. Dion needs to retire and let a Liberal leader take over that can help lead Canada. Canada’s biggest problem is a lack of a good Liberal leader, it’s not a lack of a good Conservative leader as Harper meets the credentials. Once the Liberals get a good leader again things will improve in a major way.

Rarely has such sincere and emotional conviction been seen in Parliament. Rarely has such sincere and emotional conviction been seen even among dogs defending their bones. Would that they would exercise the same energy on real issues. Scoundrels!

Why is it not OK to force parties to raise their own money? Why? If the party has popular appeal, it should be able to raise money – one voter at a time just like the CPC does it. Why do they need to receive cash-stuffed envelopes in Quebec diners (Liberals). or $5100 donations from 4-yr olds (Liberals-Volpe). Why do they need Shawinigate or AdScam or Mr. Dithers and his Canada Steamship empire. Why can’t they just EARN something rather than whetting their beaks in the public till.

The Liberal party is an absolute joke. A bunch of arrogant rich folk from Toronto and Montreal taking a piss on the rest of us. Every last one of them would knife each other in the eye for a taste of leadership. They stand for nothing. They are fence-sitters who can’t implement anything original – just steal ideas from others and take credit (GST anyone).

The NDP at least stands for something – it’s just that that something is not something that works in the real world. The equitable distribution of wealth is a noble pursuit and ultimately a useless one. It has never ever worked nor will it in a free country. Layton is much more of an Orwellian that people give him credit for.

The Bloc is a ridiculous notion. They should be cut from the vote subsidy immediately – they do not represent the interests of Canadians. Only in Canada, haven of political correctness would we put up with this crap. Call their bluff already.

The idea that the sum of these three parts is a workable solution is nonsense. Absolute nonsense. This coalition will never work. The country will disintegrate over a stupid $30M subsidy. What a waste. I don’t know why the Western provinces even bother to show up, they are so abused at the expense of S.Ont and Quebec it’s sickening – lack of proper representation in the house, the senate, and on and on.

And speaking of efficiency, anyone else enjoy sitting there waiting for 25 minutes for Dion to finally get his “live tape’ to the networks while the hosts stood there fuming? The Liberators had requested time at 7pm following the PM’s speech and had all afternoon to prepare. When the tardy tape finally appeared, it was unbelievably amateur and slightly out of focus. It just gets better and better.

Watching QP this afternoon, couldn’t help but think Dion resembled an agitated gerbil in full rant.

on your site, that balloon popping overtop Michaelle’s head absolutely sums it up: it made my day!

:)

I think Harper is playing it very nicely. Never have I seen the flushing-out of intentions as we are witnessing in progress right now.

Ottawa is a place of madmen and delusional women. Never have I seen so many big fish flitting about this small pond. It’s truly a disgusting display. How detached these politicians are.

It is now one huge mess and there will be no peace in this parliament. It is now tainted beyond redemption.

Let us have another election to let the people decide whether they will allow this abomination or give Harper a majority so he can govern sensibly.

I will live with the outcome.

If the GG allows this outrage to happen, I will consider no longer paying federal tax and will encourage all small business to withhold their tax installments as well.

No taxation without ‘elected’ representation.

“PS: Countries currently being run by coalitions at this very moment include: Germany, Switzerland, India, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Israel, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. In none of those cases was the coalition “taken to the electorate” because, once again, that’s gibberish.”

Most of those countries, if not all, have some form of PR style held elections. That is the difference, Eric.

You should never mix up numbers appearing out of two unrelated systems (PR and first-past-the-post )

That is the falacy the newly formed coaltion wants you to accept.

In 1917 the Conservative party felt that in order to fight WWI honorably, we needed conscription. They didn’t have the votes to form government, so they formed a coalition with a splinter of the Liberals.

Nobody voted for that coalition, either. Because you cannot, just like you can’t add “one plus blue.” Not because it wasn’t on the ballot; because it’s gibberish. A coalition is what happens when members of Parliament, having been entrusted with making stuff happen, come up with a way to make stuff happen for Canada. Period. A normal minority government is effectively a series of ad hoc coalitions, one for each confidence vote, which is why they’re bloody unstable. Coalitions aren’t!

Canada gave Harper a mandate to play nice. That’s what a minority government is, in ordinary words. If he didn’t play nice enough to make at least one of the other kids happy, he couldn’t control the sandbox. Harper decided that beating the other kids with a shovel was the way to go about that.

Thankfully, Mme. Jean has better Constitutional advisers than this Mr. Coyne or his chorus.

PS: Countries currently being run by coalitions at this very moment include: Germany, Switzerland, India, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Israel, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. In none of those cases was the coalition “taken to the electorate” because, once again, that’s gibberish.

Having said that I am not comfortable with the process of this Liberal led coalition. In my memory I cannot recall a government falling BEFORE they present their Budget. Many of the comments on this article are clearly partisan. The statistics quoted and the fiscal reality have not been refuted. Rhetoric does not an argument make. There has been no concrete history of the opposition working with the Conservatives to make this Parliament work. The other day on a CBC radio interview Bob Ray refused repeatedly to give a dollar figure to the coalition’s relief/economic package. He said they would have to wait to see what Mr. Obama’s government would do. How is that different from what the Conservatives have said all along?

The leader of the PQ has said that Quebec will get one billion dollars immediately, There is no doubt there will be more goodies for Quebec in the Budget of a coalition government. Only then will Canadians know what the Bloc’s price is for their political support. Polls would suggest the country is split in half on the question of a possible coalition. This does not bode well for Canadians as a whole. The stock market has already passed judgement. It has lost 1000 points since this coalition was announced.

If you are partisan then this coalition is a blessing as it rescues the opposition from ignominious defeat. If you are like me it leaves a bad taste and a deep suspicion that it has more to do with attaining power and retaining funding than it does with providing what is best for the country. This coalition is too tainted to be considered as a moral alternative. Even the best Parliamentary rules cannot foresee all possibilities. That is why we have a Governor-General as head of state and not just another political interest.

Great article and bang on! This entire coup d’etat has nothing to do with the lack of the Conservative Governments ability to deal with the worldwide recession and everything to do with the “Separatist Coalition” wanting to save there Federal funding. The advertising firms in Montreal must be celebrating their good fortune!

Back to the trough boys and girls!!!!

That way, we coulda told the meddling wannabes straight up to go back, come up with something more broadly agreeable, and then try again. The way it is we have to listen to them whine about varying “mandates”and “precedents” and how they have some claim to be in charge of things. Right now we’re arguing over who wins The Most Politically Skilled Loser contest.

They were quite common around election time. In fact, many conservatives were quite upset that it was going on.

So do not say that nobody voted for this.

All we can really say is that Canadians, as a whole, did not vote for ANY single party to have power. The Bloc, the NDP, the Liberals, the Conservatives, Canada did not believe any of them should govern this land on their own.

Well, that’s what’s happening now folks. Harper tried to ignore what Canadians said, Harper is suffering the consequences for it. That the results may not be exactly what you, or I, or anybody voted for exactly isn’t undemocratic, hell.. it’s not even unusual in our system. For instance I heard a lot of gnashing of teeth, even from Liberals, when Paul Martin was appointed finance minister. I know a number of conservatives, especially in Ontario, who cringed when they figured out that Flaherty was going to be Finance Minister in ’06.

Bottom line, perhaps no single person voted for this, but Canada did.

Adding exclamation marks doesn’t make what you wrote any more–or less–correct. And technically, of course, you are correct. Those are the technical rules of the game known as Canadian elections.

But anyone who pays half a mind to the rhetoric at the street-household-blog level during an election knows that most voters actually vote for the party, or the party leader, or both…and that the election of a local candidate is how that preference becomes registered. And the headlines and newscasts before, during and after the elections mirror that fact.

That may not be what The Great Spaghetti Monster or learned political theorists intended when they wrote the rules, but it *is* the way the game is actually played.

Or are some of you actually gonna claim that most voters know more about–and pay more attention to–their local candidate and the technical rules of Canadian parliamentary democracy than they know of the parties and party leaders in general? And that they vote accordingly?

What a lark. Why are there any subsidies at all for political parties? So they can all buy more lawn signs?

If party member Bob or Mary Lou doesn’t feel strongly enough about the clap trap generated by said member’s political party to dish out some cash, why should the taxpayer have to take over? The sheer ludicrousness of this arrangement boggles my mind. Is there really such a lack of common sense in this once-proud nation?

The attempts to pin this on some supposed “arrogance” of Harper are even worse. Admittedly, it benefits the Conservatives more, but so what? That doesn’t make it wrong … does it? Do we have to define our national economic policy around the financial success of the Liberal party of Canada? Well, that’s what the “old guy who likes pepper on his steak” tried, you know, with manila envelopes full of cash and overpriced ad contracts, &c.

Your loser leftist parties have admitted that they cannot raise adequate money from their own voters and it is a necessity to raid taxpayers’ pockets so that indicates their support is an inch deep. Now this is the group that imagines it has some kind of mandate for governing Canada?

The exact same people who have been demonizing Harper for rumored co-operation with the Bloc now think it’s fine for Liberals and NDP to pimp out Canada completely to the Bloc just to save their entitlements and grab power. Several of them have posted above.

There is hilarious projection onto Mr. Coyne of lib leftists’ own squealing 14 year old girlishness which they evidence with Harper derangement syndrome. Only 14 year old girls have such a problem with strong men of the conservative persuasion. “Pepper-spray Chretien” and “just-watch-me Trudeau” were exempt from all such criticism as another demonstration of LIBERAL HYPOCRISY.

The only thing Harper is guilty of is underestimating Liberal and NDP capacity for venality, moral turpitude and the levels they are prepared to sink to in order to grab power.

What a loathsome sight! Dion and Layton a threesome with Duceppe, the guy who’s gleefully one step closer to the break up of Canada instead of being weakened by losing the $2. per head that Quebeckers themselves are too cheap to give him.

How many more Quebec votes are there to be bought with the billion pay off Duceppe is receiving from the two JUDASES?

Liberal points and some counter points.

- “Anyone who doesn’t agree with the Liberals or votes CPC is a redneck troglodyte, hehe look at their heads explode as the coalition is about to seize power.” Well I live in Alberta, grew up in Quebec, speak four languages, have a University education, and have been paying taxes for 20 years now. But I voted CPC and yes I’m incensed at this grab for power so I must be a troglodyte.

- “Harper is an arrogant SOB and he’s getting what he deserves.” Yes because Chretien was such a great consensus builder.

- “The majority of Canadians didn’t vote for the CPC.” Another majority of Canadians didn’t vote for Chretien either but that was good enough back then, I guess things have changed in the last few years.

- “The coalition is democracy at work.” I’m going to have to call Bull$4it on that one; all the opposition parties including the Greens who failed to secure a single seat campaigned on handing the CPC another minority towards the last half of the last election. THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE ELECTORATE VOTED FOR AND EVEN GAVE HARPER A STRONGER MANDATE!!! But for some reason that kind of democracy doesn’t count. Only democracy that aligns with Liberal ideology will be tolerated.

- “Stephen harper is underhanded, he tapped into a conference call and he is a power hungry ego maniac.” Yes and Jack Layton, Stephane Dion, and Giles Duceppe haven’t been planning this for a while all said they are doing this for the good of Canada.

- “The government has lost the confidence of the house.” Really? If the deal was in the works before the house sat then how did the government lose the confidence of the house before the house even sat?

If the opposition had campaigned and won a majority of seats based on a coalition platform I would keep my trap shut as this would have truly been the will of the people but as it stands it’s nothing but a shameless power grab. Shame on the coalition of the crooked and I hope that its supporters realize just what precedence they are setting.

Cmon, this has been brokered for sometime, the stimulus was just an excuse to spring the plan.
Its nice to know the oppositions stance on War, the Economy, the Environment, Canadian National Security, are so flexible and unprincipled…

but keep your hand off the piggybank… thats undemocratic…

And out of all this, Harper gets accused of a secret agenda?
Don’t get me wrong, what harper did was hardball… but then again… so is minority politics. Is harper acting beyond his means? Yep. Will he last in power? prolly not as long as we may have expected a few weeks ago.
On that note, if the conservatives pulled this move with the bloc a few years ago, people would be in the streets demanding blood.
Ah Canada… the land of the polite, principled, and kind….
yea right…

- Jack Layton is from Quebec like Stephen Harper is from Ontario.
- The province of residence of the leaders is not terribly relevant.
- Lots of world leaders don’t speak English well. Even G. W. Bush has found the language challenging during his time in office.
- The Bloc Quebecois currently has ‘veto’ on the CPC (they will exercise it at the next opportunity).
- There will not be an NDP Finance Minister (it will be a Liberal)

And Bob, you are a god-damned moron (sorry for the bluntness) for criticizing separatists while advocating Alberta separatism.

Thanks for the well-wishing. I do hope the Coalition goes well. Now to excise the tumor currently occupying the PMO.

They are therefore prepared to support three guys from Quebec running the country (again), Dion as Prime Minister (that will impress the world, another Canadian PM who can’t speak English), a separatist with a veto, and a left of left NDP Finance Minister.

I hope you get it, you deserve it. And I hope this inspires Alberta to finally drop the “west wants in” nonsense and gtfo. Hanging out with you losers has gone on long enough.

I understand about the Financial Update uproar, but what I do not understand is that before the election, the opposition wasn’t willing, didn’t want to, were asleep, or whatever, work with the government, so it was my understanding that Harper called an election.

There the Tories had 125(?) seats, a weak minority, why didn’t the opposition form a coalition? Why wait till now?

In the current situation, all it would take is what ,12?, opposition MP’s (with some intestinal fortitude/sense of honour to country) to abstain or cross the floor, to scuttle the coalition. Before the election it would of taken what, some 30 MP’s ?

This coalition was hatched some time ago, it was just lying in waiting.

As for the coalition to say that the Tories are doing nothing for Canadians in this economic crisis, is a lark. Our largest trading partner is in between administrations and until Obama gets in, and reveals his plans, we just have to wait. For all we know he may be protectionist. Then what? But to spend 30 billion for the sake of spending in order to show Canadians that they, the coalition cares, is basically saying “Give us your money and we’ll make you happy.”

This is a blatant, desperate act of a power grab. There is no other way to put it. They had their chance before the election.

With the FU to parliament, he put the lie to that, so they’ve decided to put the boot to him.

Ordinary people utterly reject this coalition because our system is so damn complicated, they dont understand it.

When this is put to the people, Harper will have a majority, and he will be laughing at the very people who are laughing at him today.

Did Dion think he was going to win and put the coalition idea on the back burner as Plan B?

Is this some sort of act of desperation for power for whatever reason that we don’t know of?

If there is another election in the near future, the coalition parties, especially the Libs and the NDP will lose more than a buck ninety-five.

There is more here than meets the eye, something down right shady is going down. LIke I said someone is desperate.