The Madness: Democrats vs Parliamentarians

A few points in response to Rick’s piece on the Coalition in thee Ottawa Citizen:

Germans did not vote for the current Christian Democrat/ Social Democrat “grand” coalition. Nor did the Belgians know what sort of coalition they might get when they went to the polls. In fact, during the life of a single Belgian parliament, coalitions tend to shift and change. There are many other examples, in many countries, of parties coalescing after an election without having promised to do so prior to the election.

Plus, notwithstanding the factual accuracy or inaccuracy of the argument, I would note that the true measure of a coalition’s democratic legitimacy is not whether voters knew what political/structural arrangement they might be voting for. It is what policies citizens believed were voting for, or voting against.

In that sense, the current putative Canadian coalition is proposing a policy suite that is perfectly consistent with the electoral platforms of the member parties.

The Liberals have dropped their Green Shift and the NDPers their proposed corporate tax-cut rollbacks. But neither party has agreed to accept any measures that are in contradiction with the platforms on which they campaigned during the election campaign.

In their November Fiscal Update, on the other hand, the Conservatives proposed all kinds of measures about which they uttered not a word during the campaign (eliminating the public sector right to strike, for instance). Now, the Conservatives are preparing to abandon all of those never-promised initiatives and will propose a whole new series of measures — again, most of which did not form part of their electoral program.

Given that factual background, if the Government were to fall toward the end of January/early February, why would the Governor-General not look beyond a Prime Ministerial request for dissolution and another election? Even if public opinion were whipped up over a so-called “alliance with the separatists” and polls showed that many voters would be opposed to a coalition government — should a GG be governed by opinion polls?

It seems to me that the more important determining factors would be:

1) The amount of Parliamentary time elapsed ( If the government falls sometime shortly after the 26th of January Parliament will have only sat for about two weeks, maybe three);

2) Is there a viable alternative government? (With the coalition arrangement the answer is yes);

3) Which option, i.e., coalition government versus election, would likely cause the least harm? (A coalition could act on the economy right away — after an already unacceptable, government-forced prorogation delay. An election would delay action by at least another six weeks!)

In addition, there is ample precedence in our Westminster system (at both the Canadian federal and provincial levels and in other countries, such as Australia) for a GG to refuse a Prime Minister’s request for dissolution, and to call on opposition parties to form a new Government when Parliament loses confidence in a Government.

I am sure it is a misprint. It must be Republicans vs. Parliamentarians, surely?

One more thing…

I’ve said in this discussion that I believe that most Canadians are actually voting for PM when they cast their ballots. I’ve subsequently been cast as ‘proud[ly] ignorant’ and lazy.

People yammer on about electing MPs, not parties, ‘any group of members with enough support’ etc…these folks are clearly supporters of the coalition.

I wonder, harkening back to the heady days of the Sponsorship Scandal, how many of those folks would have been heard to advocate for the re-election of the LPC (with Paul Martin at its head), noting -

‘but..but..Paul Martin was out of the loop!’

When it’s Harper, it’s all parliamentary rules and constitutional arcana…when it’s the Liberals, (no wait, wasn’t it Team Paul Martin?) it’s another story entirely.

Glad I remembered that.