Inside a crisis that shook the nation

Jean chose not to be another Byng: she granted Harper’s request. Parliament would be shut down until Jan. 26, the day before the Conservatives promised to table their budget. Harper emerged, walking down the steps of Rideau Hall in a long, black coat and maroon scarf. It had begun to snow just before he arrived at the podium. As he spoke, the flakes gave way to pellets of hail, which bounced off his shoulders and collected in his hair. Gusts of wind rumbled over his microphone. “Obviously,” he said, “we have to do some trust-building here on both sides.” The previous day he had accused Dion of planning “to destroy this country.”

Dion responded by saying only a “monumental change” in Tory economic policy would stop the coalition from felling the government in late January. “Warm sentiments are not enough,” Dion said of Harper. “His behaviour must change.” Did this mean Liberals were no longer bent on voting down the Tories as soon as possible? NDP Leader Jack Layton darkly predicted Harper would unleash “seven weeks of propaganda” to try to build enough public support to survive. Even after Harper pledged to work with his opponents, Heritage Minister James Moore told Maclean’s the Tories had no intention of scaling back their barrage of rallies, radio call-in show blitzes, and Internet agitation. “It allows a lot of Canadians who are frustrated to express themselves,” he said.

After Jean gave Harper his prorogation, Liberals held a tense caucus meeting on Parliament Hill. Reports filtered out that Rae spoke as the main champion of the coalition, while Ignatieff silenced the assembled MPs and senators by grimly warning them that the party is in no condition to risk forcing an election early in 2009. What if the opposition parties vote down the Tories in late January, but Jean passes over their coalition in favour of an election? Rae was more uplifting, said one MP, but Ignatieff had a point.

After the caucus meeting, Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis hammered Dion. “Unfortunately, Mr. Dion didn’t do so good in the last election. We bombed,” Karygiannis said. “And he didn’t do so good last night. And we bombed again.” Rae saved his attack for Harper, labelling him “a man who is afraid to show up for work.” Ignatieff, Dion’s most likely successor, wouldn’t be lured into any criticism of the leader. “The questions of leadership,” he said, “are not of the hour.”

The hour arrived the very next day. In a Friday television interview, Ignatieff admitted what Liberal MPs had been saying privately since Dion’s Wednesday video embarrassment. “What the party is discussing,” he said, “is whether there are ways in which the leadership race can be accelerated in such a way that we can present clear alternatives to the country.” The next morning’s Globe and Mail carried a stinging guest column by John Manley calling for Dion’s early exit. “His weakness probably fuelled the Conservative hubris that led to this fiasco in the first place,” the former Liberal deputy prime minister wrote.

Tories staged 21 rallies across Canada against the coalition that day. “We have a right to protest,” said Moore. “And the reality is that what Stéphane Dion did this past week has angered a lot of Canadians.” A spate of polls showed the Tories getting a solid bounce out of the crisis, and scant public appetite for the coalition. A Harris-Decima poll this week found that nearly 70 per cent wanted Harper’s Conservatives to stay in power, nearly double the 37.7 per cent of the popular vote the Tories won in the Oct. 14 election.

SORTING THROUGH THE WRECKAGE

Back at work in Ottawa on Monday, even with the House silenced, Liberals braced for what would be a head-spinning day of leadership developments. After a weekend of intense pressure, Dion announced by email that he would resign whenever the party chose a new leader. Dominic LeBlanc quit to clear the way for Ignatieff to immediately succeed Dion. “The Liberal party owes itself and the Canadian people a new leader, a permanent leader, a leader able to make the necessary decisions and needed judgments leading to the budget vote and beyond,” said LeBlanc.

That left Bob Rae, one of Ignatieff’s oldest friends, as his last standing rival. Rae agreed on Sunday that the party shouldn’t wait until May to choose a leader, but he insisted the party members should be allowed to vote before, perhaps through some sort of Internet balloting. It was Rae’s last chance: Ignatieff dominated among the party’s elite, making Rae’s only hope an appeal to the rank-and-file. The party executive rejected his pleas for a wide-open vote, announcing on Tuesday this week that only MPs, senators, defeated candidates and party officials would be consulted.

Rae gave up a few hours later, gracefully offering Ignatieff his full support. His bowing out capped a two-week swirl that even the most seasoned political veterans couldn’t have foreseen. What comes next is no more obvious. The coalition forged in those hotel rooms might yet resist centrifugal forces, and cling together long enough to defeat Harper at the end of January. But Liberal sources said Ignatieff is deeply suspicious of the arrangement. Even if he sticks tentatively with the coalition, Harper might craft a budget by late next month that’s too appealing to vote down.

Whatever the outcome, the parties and their leaders all look different now. Harper survived into 2009 only through improvisation, occasional demagoguery, and constitutional brinksmanship. His reputation for strategic savvy is permanently damaged, as might be his party’s prospects among Quebecers who don’t view the Bloc as fair game for demonization. He still has only a minority, and now faces opposition leaders who distrust and dislike him, and long to humble him, more than ever. His advantage in facing Dion, a lame duck, is suddenly lost. Ignatieff might be tougher.

Layton’s long-standing behind-the-scenes interest in coalitions and co-operation with other parties is now out in the open. That will make it hard for him to claim in any future campaign, as he did in the last one, that he’s really “running for prime minister.” The distinction between New Democrat and Liberal aims is clouded, perhaps diluting the NDP brand.

As for Ignatieff, he now takes over the Liberal helm, not after a bracing victory in a conventional leadership race, but through a rushed process that didn’t allow normal democratic input from his party’s members. He will have to struggle to validate his claim on the party’s heart.

If much is left to be sorted out about what just transpired, it’s clear that there was no winner. Any political advantage flowing from the crisis of late November 2008 will be measured only in terms of who manages to recover fastest.