It may be, as the historian Michael Bliss argues, that public expectations have changed, that we are no longer inclined to defer to our betters on such questions, but rather insist on deciding them ourselves. Or it may be that the present coalition was the problem: that changing governments without an intervening election might be acceptable in other circumstances, but could not be stretched to cover such an absurd set of facts. Whatever may be the case, the public’s revulsion at what was proposed was palpable, and overwhelming. Polls showed majorities of upwards of 60 per cent opposed to the coalition taking power. Could no one have predicted this? Did no one recall what the result was in 1926—a resounding defeat for the Conservatives at the next election?
It’s easy to see why the NDP was pushing for it. Had the coalition succeeded, they would have been given seats at the cabinet table, a half-dozen of them, for the first time in their history. No longer could they be marginalized as a protest party, without experience in government. Likewise, the Bloc’s interest was clear. Whatever Gilles Duceppe might have agreed to include in the text of their infamous “accord,” to the effect that the Bloc would not vote against the coalition government on a confidence motion for 18 months, the reality is that a Dion government would be entirely at the mercy of the Bloc for its survival. The “permanent consultative mechanism” envisaged in the accord would either deliver on the Bloc’s demands—effectively conferring veto power, on the Bloc if not Quebec—or would be denounced as a sham, a fraud upon the Quebec “nation.”
What is harder to fathom is why the Liberals would ever have signed on to this. At a stroke, Dion legitimized the NDP, even as he was marginalizing his own party, by association. Worse, by entering into a formal agreement with the Bloc, he threw away the Liberals’ most enduring political strength, their reputation as the party of national unity. It wasn’t that anyone feared that Dion, the passionate separatist-fighter, would conspire in the breakup of the country. But such an unpopular leader, at the head of such a weak party, would be peculiarly vulnerable to the demands of his coalition partners, NDP or Bloc. Indeed, one can only imagine that is how the whole thing got started: the NDP and the Bloc threatened to take down the government, and forced the Liberals to agree to a coalition rather than face an election.
In retrospect, many Grits must be thanking their lucky stars they were spared having to go through with it, the Governor General bowing instead to Harper’s request to prorogue Parliament. (Perhaps some were even counting on this: it seems hard to believe they would not have considered the possibility.) Had the coalition attempted to form a government, it would almost certainly have collapsed in short order: having extracted as much extra spending as they could, the NDP and the Bloc would most likely abandon it in the spring, rather than wait for Dion’s replacement to be elected. Indeed, it might very well have destroyed the Liberal party.
But the damage is considerable as it is. Just the prospect of a coalition takeover prompted a 10- to 15-point swing in public opinion in favour of the Conservatives—from 32 per cent in a Nanos poll just before the economic statement, to an average of 47 per cent in four polls (Ipsos, Strategic Counsel, Ekos and Compas) taken last week. In the West, in particular, where the Liberals desperately need to start building a base if they are to have any hope of winning future elections, the affair may well prove to be a second National Energy Program. But the cost may be even greater in Ontario, once a Liberal fortress, where the Conservatives are now polling in excess of 50 per cent.
Worse, by being seen to get too cozy with the Bloc, they may well have handed Harper a historic strategic opening—to make the Conservatives the Canada Party, replacing the Liberals as the guardians of national unity. To be sure, there were large dollops of humbug in Harper’s attacks on the “separatist coalition,” given his own past flirtations with the Bloc. Unhappily for the Liberals, they remain in the past: whatever Harper may have been willing to do with the Bloc, it never came to anything. Whereas the Liberals’ “accord” with the Bloc is on public display, in photos of Dion, Layton and Duceppe at that remarkably ill-advised signing ceremony that will live in Tory attack ads for years to come. And while his replacement by Michael Ignatieff, with his carefully telegraphed skepticism toward the coalition, may signal the Liberals’ attempts to disentangle themselves from what Dion has wrought, this may not prove so easy as all that. Not only the Conservatives, but the other members of the coalition, will be quick to remind people that Ignatieff’s signature is on that letter to the Governor General formally committing the Liberals to the coalition, along with that of every other member of his caucus. And even if he now renounces the coalition, he must somehow extinguish from public memory not only his own past statements in support of it, but the continuing and highly public enthusiasm of Bob Rae, his nearest rival.
Yet the reality is the coalition is dead. Much as Ignatieff might like to hold it in reserve—“coalition if necessary, but not necessarily coalition”—as a deterrent to future Conservative adventurism, the threat lacks credibility. The public’s reaction has seen to that. When, therefore, the Tories bring down their budget on Jan. 27, there can be only two possible outcomes. Either the budget will pass, or the House will be dissolved and an election called. And as the Liberals cannot possibly face an election at this time—Ignatieff has reportedly been brutally frank about this in caucus—the far greater likelihood is that the budget will pass.
Unless . . . Unless the Tories can find some way to make it impossible for the Liberals to accept it. They have to be careful: they don’t want to lose the public. But suppose they were to spend the next several weeks advertising their willingness to work with the opposition—especially the Liberals. And suppose they were to take on board many of the opposition demands: a massive bailout for the auto industry. Billions more in infrastructure spending, complete with “shovels in the ground” photo-ops. A feel-good meeting with the premiers in mid-January, ending in some sort of agreement to “work together” on the economy. All wrapped up in a budget whose every second word is “stimulus.” And now suppose, having given the Liberals just about everything they could ask for, they also include the party financing proposal.
Bundle up, Grits. It’s going to be a long winter.
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