Something in the Canadian political class, some primeval instinct, requires it to beach itself at regular intervals on the shores of some lunatic misadventure. The ingredients are always the same: immense self-absorption; total strategic blindness; a profound disconnect with, if not contempt for, how its machinations will play outside its own narrow circles; and, as the extent of its miscalculation starts to become clear, panicked, bovine unanimity in support of pressing on with the same strategy. Oh, and some sort of special status for Quebec.
Until now, the Meech Lake and Charlottetown cataclysms were the foremost examples of this seemingly bottomless appetite for self-destruction, this unwavering determination to learn nothing from past mistakes, except how to repeat them over and over again—especially where Quebec is concerned. But nothing in the long catalogue of elite folly quite matches the apparent fit of mass delusion that overcame the opposition parties last week. Never was there a more inept lunge for power, nor one with so little chances of success. As with any failed coup attempt, the long-term consequences are likely to be profound, and dreadful.
I know, I know: we are taught to believe the fault lies with Stephen Harper and the Conservatives. It was their miscalculation that kicked off the whole mess, in the official version—a fall economic statement that so enraged the opposition as to all but guarantee the government’s demise. At best, the media consensus ran, the proposal to reduce public funding for political parties was a reckless provocation, an existential threat to the opposition parties that Harper should have known could only invite one response. The Prime Minister had opted for petty partisanship at a time when the public wanted action on the economy. To his worst critics, it was an attack on democracy, a pathologically partisan attempt to starve the opposition parties of funds, in defiance of civilized democratic norms.
We can dispense with the last point first. While it is true that the opposition parties are more dependent on public funding than the Conservatives, that is only a statement of their relative lack of success in raising funds on their own. Yet absolutely nothing prevents them from doing so. The Tories enjoy no built-in structural advantage—as the Liberals did, in the days when corporations could and did donate unlimited amounts to stay on side with the “natural governing party.” The average Conservative contributor, by contrast, gives just $158. It’s just that there are more of them: five times as many, last year, as the Liberals. There’s nothing “unfair” in this, any more than it is unfair that a party should win an election because it got more votes. Is it so barbaric to suggest that political parties should rely less on the state, more on voluntary donations? Tell it to Sweden, where all party funding is private.
But leave aside the merits of the case: were the Tories motivated by crass partisanship? Of course. Did they misjudge the opposition response? Undoubtedly: the rapid withdrawal of the offending provisions in the days after makes that clear. But did they cause this response? That’s less clear. We have it from Jack Layton’s own mouth—the famous eavesdropped conference call—that the NDP and the Bloc, in particular, were determined to bring the government down, and had prepared plans for a coalition government far in advance. But it is probably true that the economic statement, and the widespread perception that the Conservatives had crossed some sort of line, furnished them with the needed pretext. If Harper did not foresee that, it is perhaps to his discredit. But he may not have imagined anyone could be quite so insane.
The opposition had other options, after all, between abject surrender, on the one hand, and taking the government down, on the other. They had won the initial skirmish over the economic statement: the preponderant media reaction was that the Tories were behaving like bullies. They could have exploited this. They could have moved amendments, proposed compromises, showing statesmanlike reasonableness in the face of Tory intransigence. When these failed, they could have tied up parliamentary business, filibustered, rang bells, all the roster of means an opposition has to register its displeasure. By dragging the debate out, they could have kept the issue in the public eye, allowing the impression of an overbearing and uncooperative government to sink in. They did not have to escalate to nuclear on the first day.
Even then, they had options. Having forced the government to climb down, in quite humiliating fashion, they could have backed off themselves. They would have proved their point, demonstrated resolve, shown unity. The government, and more particularly the Prime Minister, would have been left weakened. But they didn’t. Whether out of maddened ambition, or a desire for revenge, or sheer bloodlust, they pressed on. Almost immediately, media attention turned from Harper’s hubris to the coalition’s unseemly lust for power. And worse was to come. If Harper was guilty of overreaching, the opposition redoubled his error in the other direction. If Harper misjudged the opposition’s reaction, it is clear they misjudged his—and the public’s.
Could they have imagined the plot would succeed? Could they really have supposed the public would meekly accept the replacement of a duly elected government, just six weeks after its election, with a coalition of the parties it defeated—two of whom had explicitly campaigned against the idea? A coalition led by the Liberals, fresh from their worst election showing since Confederation—a party that, with just one quarter of the seats in Parliament, would not even be a majority within its own coalition? Backed by the NDP? And beholden for its very existence to the support of a separatist party? In what parallel universe would the public have swallowed any of this—to say nothing of Prime Minister Stéphane Dion? Did anyone think to ask how this would play in, say, the West? Did anyone care?
There’s no doubt of the legality of what was proposed. As coalition advocates patiently explained, ours is a system of parliamentary government. We elect parliaments, not governments; the ministry is composed of those who have the confidence of the 308 members of the House of Commons. In the wake of the Conservative defeat, the Governor General would have been perfectly within her rights, rather than plunge the country into yet another election, to call upon the coalition to form a government. And there was precedent, of a kind, notably Lord Byng’s decision to call upon Arthur Meighen’s Conservatives in 1926, rather than dissolve the House as Mackenzie King demanded. Apparently, the opposition persuaded themselves these sorts of arguments would impress the public.
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