Poll shows Canadians still leery of Liberal-led coalition

By macleans.ca - Monday, March 28, 2011 at 12:59 PM - 39 Comments

A new poll shows most Canadians aren’t convinced Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff would forego a coalition in the even the Conservatives win another minority. Ignatieff has flatly denied the idea of a coalition, but a survey conducted by QMI Agency shows that only 17 per cent of Canadians believe he would not form one with the NDP and the Bloc Québécois. There is even high skepticism among Liberal voters, 35 per cent of whom do not believe their leader’s claim, while 32 per cent do. A whopping 95 per cent of Conservative voters say they are staunchly opposed to the idea of a coalition.

Canoe.ca

Libyan rebels advance on Sirte

By macleans.ca - Monday, March 28, 2011 at 11:58 AM - 1 Comment

Rebels in Libya have advanced on Sirte after coalition air raids bombarded the city, a key strategic location that lies halfway between Tripoli and Benghazi, and is the hometown of Col. Moammar Gadhafi. Celebratory gunfire erupted in Benghazi after unconfirmed rumours circulated the Sirte had fallen to the rebels. Meanwhile, pro-Gadhafi forces continue to shell the western city of Misrata, where eight people were killed and 26 wounded on Sunday. Qatar has formally recognized the rebel leadership, the Transitional National Council, as the official representatives of the Libyan people, making it the first Arab nation to do so. In Tripoli, four people were arrested after a woman, Iman al Obeidi, claimed she was raped and tortured by Gadhafi supporters after being abducted from the Rixos Hotel while speaking to foreign journalists.

BBC News

The Junos were better than the Oscars and Grammys

By Michael Barclay - Monday, March 28, 2011 at 11:27 AM - 3 Comments

Like most 40-year-olds in a business known for arrested adolescence, it was high time the Juno Awards ceremony started acting its age. That meant no more bad jokes, no embarrassing speeches, no cloying attempts at achieving that nebulous adjective “world-class.” A 40-year-old is neither young nor old, and last night’s Junos maintained a perfect balance between respect for elders (Neil Young won Artist of the Year) and the upstart youth (Justin Bieber won Pop Album of the Year).

Of course, there were still bad jokes—this is an awards show, after all—but nothing as cringe-worthy as in years past. As host, hip-hop superstar Drake was charming enough to make you forget that his whiny emo rap is mostly about the emptiness of fame and how terrible it is to be rich and get laid all the time. In his opening skit with Justin Bieber, they duetted on Sarah McLachlan’s I Will Remember You; with pianist Chilly Gonzales, he riffed on the rapper Snow and the Hockey Night in Canada theme, which at the very least proved that he can actually sing without Autotune.

For a next generation star, Drake was oddly old school—like, Brat Pack old school. The man is an actor, after all, and at the Junos he played his part better than anyone expected. (Or maybe, after James Franco co-hosted the Oscars, our collective expectations have plummeted to new depths.)

Choosing a hip-hop star—whose album Thank Me Later was the eighth-bestselling album in the U.S. last year—to host suggested a large generational shift, but other than an awkward skit where Drake visited an old-age home to teach seniors how to act hip-hop (which was more amusing than it had any right to be), this year’s Junos were remarkable for how successfully intergenerational they were.

Perhaps because the awards were celebrating a milestone, they managed to pull an all-star list of Canadian legends that encapsulate the history of Canadian popular music: present were Robbie Robertson, Neil Young, Buffy Sainte Marie, Rush, Bryan Adams, Daniel Lanois, Blue Rodeo, Maestro Fresh Wes, Sarah McLachlan, Shania Twain, Billy Talent, Feist, Broken Social Scene, Arcade Fire, K’naan, and Deadmau5. Seems only Celine was missing. The days when Canada’s sense of cultural security depended on whether or not Anne Murray would show up at the Junos are long past.

There’s always a fair amount of flag-waving at the Junos, and not just when K’naan is performing. Drake’s opening speech could have been written by Heritage Minister James Moore—and maybe it was, as Moore cancelled his usually stilted performance this year (hopefully because CTV would have considered it campaigning during an election). Shania Twain, being inducted into the Hall of Fame, gushed endlessly about her home and native land, in a speech seemingly inspired by Jean Chretien’s electoral stump speeches—she stopped short of saying, “I love da Rockies!” She did, however, say, “I feel like I should be wearing the Canadian flag here tonight. I love our lakes, I love our bush, I love our people,” prompting filthier minds to snicker at a major sex symbol using the word “bush.” (Though has anyone even made a “bush” joke since the John Waters movie Pecker? The woman is from Timmins, after all, give her a break.)

Humility was also the order of the evening. Twain said she was “more proud of the music made in Canada than I am of my own success.” Young, accepting Artist of the Year after beating Bieber and Drake, laughed, “What year is this?!” Single of the year went to the re-recorded version of K’naan’s Waving Flag, commissioned for Haitian earthquake relief. Arcade Fire promoted its own Haitian charity, Kanpe. Neil Young spoke eloquently while accepting the Allan Waters Humanitarian Award about musicians’ role in philanthropy.

For a ceremony that’s billed as more of a big-tent variety show than a hardware handout (only eight of the 40 awards are presented during the broadcast), the performances were perfectly pleasant, but not earth-shattering: Sarah McLachlan looked lovely; Hedley sounded suspiciously like Sarah McLachlan; Arcade Fire performed “Rococo,” a song that ’70s FM radio DJs might call a “deep cut,” and Broken Social Scene’s Andrew Whiteman made sure the TV cameras could see that he wrote “Vote Harper Out Now” on his guitar.

The sole misfire was right off the top: opening performer Down With Webster. Gene Simmons’s favourite Canadian act is a limp rap-rock group who looked like they won a high school battle of the bands, with a horn section clad in balaclavas and lyrics like “Woe is me / I’m so woah.” Yep, the show had nowhere to go but up from here.

Buck 65 and Deadmau5—the electronic performer who only ever appears in public with a giant mouse mask over his head—presented the Group of the Year award to Arcade Fire, the first of three awards the band scored during the telecast. Arcade Fire’s Win Butler politely kissed Deadmau5 on both sides of his mask, and gave a shout-out to “all the bands we came up with, from Royal City and the Hidden Cameras to Wolf Parade and the Unicorns.” Butler is a Texan who married a Montrealer; those fine bands probably form his sense of Canadian music, and it’s one of the reasons why his band is a hero to a new generation of this country’s music fans.

Not surprisingly to anyone, Justin Bieber won the Fan Choice Award, which is based on an Internet poll. As Esperanza Spalding and Kim Kardashian can tell you, Bieber fans know a thing or two about flooding the Internet with devotion to their idol. When Neil Young took Artist of the Year later in the night, Twitter’s funniest hashtag became whothef—kisNeilYoung.” Bieber phoned in his acceptance speech from a tour stop in Rotterdam, closing by saying, “Peace, Junos”—just to make sure we knew this wasn’t a generic thank-you video he sends out to all the award shows.

If Shania Twain’s induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame ruffled the feathers of Stan Rogers fans, still irked over their hero’s exclusion, they should note that Ms. Twain—who Steve Earle once called “the highest paid lap dancer in America”—has the bestselling album by a female artist in history; she sold 39 million copies of 1997’s Come On Over, a feat that’s considered impossible in today’s music industry.

It was an odd night for the Canadian music industry: Arcade Fire’s success, for example, has been in spite of the industry here, rather than a product of it (they thanked Dounia Mikou, the sole employee of their record label, Sonovox, which licenses the band’s music around the world). Drake and Justin Bieber owe a huge part of their success to their all-star American mentors (Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Usher) and social media. Sarah McLachlan just announced her split with her long-time manager, Nettwerk’s Terry McBride. In one of the only major-label victories of the night, Best New Artist went to Meaghan Smith, whose deal with Warner Music meant she was the only act in that category not on an independent label.

But if Toronto as an industry town was shut out of the awards, Toronto as a cultural centre was celebrated in ways that seem heretical. Did Drake really call Toronto “the greatest city in the entire world” on Canadian television? Isn’t there some kind of CRTC regulation about that?

And then there was the parade of Toronto roots music all-stars paying tribute to the city’s musical history: Sarah Harmer did Joni Mitchell’s Carey; Jim Cuddy, who learned how to play guitar with Gordon Lightfoot songs, did If You Could Read My Mind; City and Colour and Derek Miller did Neil Young’s Old Man, and The Band’s Shape I’m In was performed by all of the above, led by the Sadies and also featuring Serena Ryder, Greg Keelor, Justin Rutledge, and Kevin Hearn doing a very convincing Garth Hudson impersonation. Even though it was a shameless boomer nostalgia trip, it was the most inspired musical performance of the night.

And so there were no ridiculous speeches or performance flubs. There were no awkward presenter pairings. Shameless CTV cross-promotion was at a minimum (Lloyd Robertson appeared in Drake’s opening skit) and Ben Mulroney made himself the butt of a joke before anyone else could. Drake proved to be a much better host than he is a rapper: it was telling that he led the nominations but was entirely shut out, losing even Best Rap Recording to the much worthier Shad.

Two years ago, the Junos had sunk so low that I felt like burning a flag after watching. This year, the Junos were not only more entertaining than either the Grammys or the Oscars, but they represented the real maturity of the Canadian music industry. It’s about time.

–
www.radiofreecanuckistan.blogspot.com

Campbell's Soup faces lawsuit over salt in soups

By macleans.ca - Monday, March 28, 2011 at 11:12 AM - 7 Comments

A U.S. federal judge has allowed a lawsuit to proceed against Campbell Soup Co. over whether its “low-sodium” tomato soup actually has less sodium, Reuters reports. The world’s largest soup maker was sued by four New Jersey women last year who claim to have been misled into paying more for the “low sodium” brand, even though they say it has almost as much sodium as Campbell’s regular tomato soup. U.S. District Judge Jerome Simandle said the women could press claims under the state’s consumer fraud act. The lawsuit is seeking class action status. Campbell has said the allegations are without merit and plans to fight the case in court.

Reuters

Bus lag

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, March 28, 2011 at 11:05 AM - 10 Comments

Susan Delacourt reflects on the lessons of campaigns past.

Reporters will make “fit to govern” judgments based on how well the tour buses perform  in the area of feeding and accommodating the media. Campaign buses that get lost or break down or fail to provide three square meals a day to reporters will be pronounced abject failures at political leadership/competence.

What to call voters, besides Canadians?

By John Geddes - Monday, March 28, 2011 at 10:13 AM - 87 Comments

When I posted this yesterday on Stephen Harper’s appeal to immigrants and their children (and grandchildren, I suppose), I hesitated slightly before typing the word “ethnic.” I wondered if I should think of another adjective to describe these voters.

Aren’t all voters, if you get down to it, ethnic voters? But then I thought I might be falling prey to a sort of overly self-conscious attention to a harmless word. The term is generally understood to mean immigrants and maybe the next generation or two of their families. No harm in using this shorthand. Or so I thought.

Then this morning I heard this from Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff at his Toronto news conference, when he was asked about his own bid for the ethnic vote:

“Let me just say, if I may say with the greatest respect, the word ‘ethnic vote’, spare us this. With the greatest respect, I don’t think it treats people with respect. These are Canadians. I’m going to everybody out there, I’m saying a Canadian is a Canadian Canadian. Come on into the big red tent.  I’m going out to Mississauga not to talk to the ethnic vote. I’m going out there to talk to Canadians. “

Continue…

Those Beatles Were a Passing Fad

By Jaime Weinman - Monday, March 28, 2011 at 10:00 AM - 8 Comments

After you read Michael Barclay on last night’s Juno show, here’s a brief look at a much weirder place where popular music and television intersect:

There was a conversation on Social Media™ the other day about Beatles knockoff bands from ’60s sitcoms — from about 1964 to 1967, several prime-time U.S. comedies did episodes spoofing Beatlemania, almost always with a made-up band and some jokes about their haircuts. All of this culminated in The Monkees, the first show built entirely around a made-up group, but they were actually supposed to be a popular group outside of the show; the other shows usually brought on a fake group singing a fake song (once in a while we’d get a real one) to show us how ridiculous the writers thought the Beatles were.

The Flintstones ended an episode by posing as the popular (but not with hillbillies) group “The Four Insects”; the Petticoat Junction girls were organized into “The Ladybugs” (and actually appeared that was on the Ed Sullivan Show as a cross-promotion), The Mosquitoes left Gilligan and his friends stranded on the island again, Dick Van Dyke met a two-man band called the Redcoats (played by a Continue…

Suddenly average Canadian families are a top political prize

By John Geddes - Monday, March 28, 2011 at 9:52 AM - 5 Comments

Aaron Vincent Elkaim/CP

Jack Layton wasted no time getting to the point. Striding into the foyer of the House to declare that his NDP MPs would be voting against last week’s federal budget—all but ensuring the Conservative minority would fall within days—Layton quickly accused Stephen Harper of failing the “middle class.” He proceeded to work into his denunciation of the budget a few more rapid-fire references to the most sought-after voter demographic group in the coming election. “Mr. Harper had an opportunity to address the needs of hard-working middle-class Canadians and families, and he missed that opportunity,” Layton said, adding seconds later that the budget didn’t “give middle-class families a break.”

Brace yourself to hear plenty about the hard-working, everyday, over-stressed Canadian middle class in the next few weeks. Layton is joining the Prime Minister and Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff in trying to position himself as the champion of the most admirably unexceptional sort of family. The Harper government’s proudest boast, for instance, is that they’ve saved the average two-earner family $3,000 by cutting taxes. For his part, Ignatieff recently travelled the country on what he dubbed a “Working Families Tour.”

The tripartisan preoccupation with voting moms and dads nesting in nice suburbs might sound like politics as usual, but the uniform emphasis—almost to the point of obsession—is new. In the past, Harper’s strategists were often fixated on other sorts of demographic aims, like orchestrating a Quebec breakthrough. Under Paul Martin and Stéphane Dion, Liberals tried grand-vision platforms, like competing globally and taxing carbon, rather than targeted policies aimed explicitly at middle-class taxpayers. Taking over the NDP leadership eight years ago, after the party’s decline in the 1990s, Layton had to first rebuild its base—largely young and single, often less affluent—and has only recently made broadening into comfortable suburbs a prime electoral objective.

Continue…

Is Libya another Iraq?

By Michael Petrou - Monday, March 28, 2011 at 9:25 AM - 4 Comments

Patrick Baz/AFP/Getty Images

A coalition of mostly Western nations, including Canada, has entered a war with loosely defined objectives and an uncertain end.
Following much-delayed approval from the United Nations Security Council for a no-fly zone and the use of “all necessary measures” short of occupation to protect civilians, France, Britain and the United States launched a barrage of air and cruise missile strikes against Libyan air defences, armour and command centres last weekend. Canadian CF-18 fighters flew their first sorties over Libya Monday. Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi’s expansive Bab al-Aziziya complex in Tripoli was attacked Sunday night—suggesting, despite conflicting statements from nations fighting in Libya, that Gadhafi himself is a target.

British Prime Minister David Cameron told MPs Monday that the Security Council resolution “does not provide legal authority for action to bring about Gadhafi’s removal from power by military means.” Britain’s chief of defence staff, Gen. David Richards, said targeting Gadhafi was “not allowed under the UN resolution.” But Defence Secretary Liam Fox said striking at the Libyan leader was “potentially a possibility.”

U.S. President Barack Obama, who for weeks appeared reluctant to involve American forces in the Libyan war, said the mission’s goals centred on protecting civilians rather than regime change. Asked if these goals might be achieved with Gadhafi still in power, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said, “That’s certainly potentially one outcome.” Speaking in Chile Monday, Obama said Gadhafi “needs to go,” but suggested this might be accomplished using “a wide range of tools” besides military action.

Continue…

Want Harper to be less of a dictator? Give him a majority.

By Andrew Potter - Monday, March 28, 2011 at 9:05 AM - 117 Comments

Adrian Wyld/CP

Everyone agrees that Stephen Harper has been running the most centralized, partisan, and unaccountable government in Canadian history. The opposition obviously thinks so—that’s the motivation behind the slate of contempt-of-Parliament charges that threatened to bring down the government—unless, as looked likely at press time, unanimous opposition to Jim Flaherty’s Tuesday budget did so first. The press gallery pretty much agrees, since its members have spent the last five years complaining about Harper’s unprecedented lockdown on communications and access to information. But even the Conservative party’s own political messaging has portrayed the “Harper government” as a one-man show, a Stalinesque fetishization of the isolated leader working long and lonely into the night.

The only way any of this is going to change is if voters come to their senses and give him a majority in the House of Commons.

If that sounds odd, it is because the received wisdom for the past decade has been that minority rule is the answer to everything wrong with our democracy. It forces government to be more open and transparent with voters in order to survive. By requiring that it earn the support of at least one opposition party in order to stay in power, a minority delivers a more consensual style of governing, which enhances national unity and results in more progressive policies. As constitutional expert Peter Russell argued in Two Cheers for Minority Government, minorities empower Parliament at the cost of greater instability, but it’s a trade-off worth making.

Continue…

Layton's version

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, March 28, 2011 at 8:30 AM - 64 Comments

Two questions remain for Stephen Harper to answer. But to this and this and this, you can add what Jack Layton wrote five years ago. In Chapter 9 of Speaking Out Louder—published in 2006—Jack Layton detailed the aftermath of the 2004 election from his perspective.

After meeting first with Paul Martin—and finding little room for cooperation—Mr. Layton met with Mr. Harper and Mr. Duceppe. Below, a few excerpts concerning those discussions. Continue…

The Commons: Rave-up

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, March 27, 2011 at 8:08 PM - 68 Comments

The circular amphitheatre, used in other circumstances by a circus school, was bathed in red light. A muscular DJ spun pounding dance music, the heavy bass shaking the floor. In the audience, signs and thundersticks waved approximately to the beat.

After a few warm-up acts, Justin Trudeau bounded on stage, vibrating with apparent enthusiasm. He wore a suit jacket, but no tie, the top two buttons of his dress shirt undone. He and a cohost proceeded then to introduce the party’s Montreal team, Mr. Trudeau announcing each arrival as if introducing the starting line-up of the ’76 Habs.

On defence, the bespectacled one, Francisss Scarrr-pa-leggia! At left wing, in the tweed coat, Irwinnnn Cot-ler! Each descended the stairs from the top of the crowd. Each of the men wore the same look: suit jacket, no tie, top button of dress shirt undone. The lone candidate in a tie promptly removed his upon arriving on stage.

Finally, the captain, Michael Ignatieff, the Liberal leader appearing in a pink shirt, his wife by his side. Continue…

Harper's first stop in suburban, heavily ethnic territory [UPDATED from his second]

By John Geddes - Sunday, March 27, 2011 at 6:15 PM - 71 Comments

The biggest ovation Stephen Harper earned at his rally in Brampton, Ont. this morning didn’t come when he issued one of his grim warnings about the supposed inevitability of a Liberal-NDP-Bloc Québécois coalition seizing power if he doesn’t win Conservative majority.

No, the crowd drawn from the suburbs of Toronto’s western sprawl reacted with its most spontaneous-sounding applause, to my ear at least, when Harper said rather soberly that “Canada is the closest thing the world has to an island of security and stability.”

And this reaction flowed from a crowd of Tories that included a large contingent of Sikhs, a key component of the “very ethnic” voting demographic targeted, above all, by Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney. (Kenney was, not coincidentally, on hand to introduce the Prime Minister.)

Continue…

Coalition matters: the Coshist talking points

By Colby Cosh - Sunday, March 27, 2011 at 5:23 PM - 149 Comments

1. The grouches who are complaining that the election talk so far has focused too obsessively on coalitions and post-election hypotheticals are apparently incapable of seeing that discussion goes faster in the 21st century. That they are making this complaint all the way into the official first full day of the election should have served as a hint to them. (You’re exhausted already? Poor lambs.) There is plenty of time left to have this conversation, and to obtain desirable assurances from various party leaders. Particularly ones that are (or were, until yesterday) trying to get away with being a little mealy-mouthed about it!

2. The coalition chit-chat, after all, concerns a field of ethics and procedure in which there are few firm rules and novel, still-unresolved complexities. Canada is trying to govern itself with a separatist party close to (and unlikely to be driven very far away from) the fulcrum of power in its popular assembly. It is worth taking a little while to get this right. Continue…

The '04 leaders debate

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, March 27, 2011 at 3:53 PM - 72 Comments

Mr. Harper says the Conservative party “allowed” Mr. Martin to govern after the 2004 election. Mr. Duceppe says what Mr. Harper says now is the opposite of what he said then. Mr. Layton says Mr. Harper was prepared to form government.

“What Mr. Harper was intending to do, it’s absolutely crystal clear to me, was to attempt to become prime minister even though he had not received the most seats in the House. And that letter was designed to illustrate that such an option is legitimate in Canadian constitutional traditions and there was no question about it,” Mr. Layton told reporters Sunday morning in his first new conference of the election campaign. “I was in meetings where this was discussed” … “For me it’s a question of trust. I do not believe you can trust Mr. Harper with his word,” Mr. Layton said. “And I think this recent position that he’s taking now that the idea of parties working together is somehow contrary to Canadian institutions and totally unacceptable is a false outrage because he was willing to do that himself when he would have become prime minister.”

Mr. Ignatieff seems not to have much sympathy for Mr. Harper. This from a meeting with reporters a short while ago here in Montreal. Continue…

Gilles Duceppe, federalist hardliner

By Andrew Coyne - Sunday, March 27, 2011 at 3:10 PM - 67 Comments

“Mr. Duceppe clarified that he, too, would never be part of a formal coalition with the other parties, saying it would be “against nature” for the separatist party to be government ministers.”

Thus putting him offside with the countless Canadian academics, politicians and blog commenters who are quite ready to explain why it’s perfectly all right for a party dedicated to the destruction of Canada to also be governing it.

The Quebec appeal

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, March 27, 2011 at 2:36 PM - 1 Comment

Michael Ignatieff always has two speeches, the one in the prepared text and the one he delivers (while only periodically checking with his prepared text). The text for today’s speech is here. A recording is below. Compare and contrast at your leisure.

These remarks are accompanied by a new spot for the Quebec audience.

Is Canada a nation?

By Andrew Coyne - Sunday, March 27, 2011 at 2:22 PM - 87 Comments

I know he’s said it many times before, and I know it’s the kind of thing that people say without blinking these days, and believe me I don’t expect anything better from any of the other leaders, but this is nevertheless an astonishing thing for anyone seeking to lead the country to say:

I know that the great majority of Quebecers consider that Quebec is their nation, and Canada is their country. I was the first to recognize that. I believe that one can be a Quebecer or a Canadian in the order that one desires.

Or at least it should be astonishing. I suppose I’d say I was astonished more people aren’t astonished, but I’m not even astonished by that any more.

The issue here isn’t whether Quebec is a nation: that’s a debate for another time. The issue is whether Canada is. In Ignatieff’s formulation, it’s just a country, at least to the “great majority of Quebecers.” Quebec is a nation, of that he has no doubt: but is Canada? And if so, are Quebecers part of it?

And whatever Canada is, the putative Prime Minister of Canada is quite content that it should take second place: that people’s first loyalty should be, not to the nation — whoops, country — he seeks to lead, but to something else. This at least has the virtue of clarity: another politician might utter the fatuity that you can have equal loyalty to two different things, because after all the two will never conflict.

But if they do? If there’s an issue that, God forbid, should ask people to put Canada’s interests, the interests of the whole nation/country, first? No, a Prime Minister Ignatieff would be content that Canada should, always, finish second. Presumably he is no less complaisant with other parts of the country putting their own selfish, narrow and particular interests ahead of the rest.

A nation — hell, even a country — cannot function that way. The whole point is that we make certain sacrifices for each other: that we compromise, at least some of the time, in the interest of the greater good. The only way people will do that is if they are willing to put Canada, on occasion, first. And the job of a Prime Minister of Canada, you would think, is to ask them — no, not ask: implore, urge, demand — to do that.

“Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” Can you imagine any Prime Minister of Canada saying that? And is that to our credit? Or does it help to explain why we’ve spent the last 50 years teetering on the edge of destruction, making regular ransom payments to avert it?

So I think it would be appropriate to ask Ignatieff, and all the other leaders: Is Canada a nation? If so, are Quebecers part of it? And is it conceivable that anyone in Canada might ever have to put Canada first?

CODA: Never mind JFK. Try another thought experiment. The House of Commons famously passed a resolution declaring “the Québécois” to be a nation. Can you imagine the same House passing a resolution declaring Canada, or Canadians, to be a nation? Go ahead, try…

Who gets to govern? Venturing deep into the post-May 2 scenario weeds

By John Geddes - Sunday, March 27, 2011 at 12:18 PM - 28 Comments

The question, it seems to me, is a simple one: can the party that didn’t win the most seats in a Canadian election legitimately form a government? Well, I guess it would be better to say deceptively simple.

As you may have heard, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is darkly warning on the campaign trail that Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff secretly plans to try to win this election without winning. If the Conservatives fail to secure a majority on May 2, Ignatieff will, with the backing of the NDP and Bloc Québécois, deny the Tories a chance to govern.

Continue…

Repeat after him

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, March 27, 2011 at 11:35 AM - 46 Comments

The prepared text of Mr. Harper’s remarks to a rally in Brampton this morning, including no less than 21 instances of the word “coalition.”

“Friends, yesterday I reluctantly visited the Governor-General.  I say reluctantly because as much as I appreciate your enthusiasm, as much as I enjoy campaigning all across this great country, and as confident as I am in our team and our chances, this is not where I should be.

“Not where any of us: Leaders, Ministers, MPs, should be.  We should all be back in Ottawa.  At our desks.  And working!

“Working to protect our economic advantage.  Working to complete our economic recovery.  And working to keep your taxes down by implementing the budget that the minister of finance tabled on Tuesday.  That budget is the next phase of Canada’s Economic Action Plan, a plan by which this country, Canada, has been leading the global recovery!

“It is a low-tax plan of critical importance to jobs, growth and the financial security of hardworking Canadian families.

“But, as you know, the Liberal-NDP-Bloc Québécois Coalition had a different priority: an election the country didn’t want, an election the economy doesn’t need.

Continue…

Iggy's (continuing) problem, Harper's opportunity

By Andrew Coyne - Sunday, March 27, 2011 at 11:33 AM - 113 Comments

As others have pointed out, and as I’ve said myself, Ignatieff’s formal disavowal of any post-election coalition with the NDP and the Bloc does not mean he has sworn off trying to form a government with their support.

Indeed, if Harper does not win a majority, that is the almost certain result: though it’s always possible Harper might try to strike a deal with them himself, and not impossible they would accept, the greater probability by far is that a Conservative minority government would soon be defeated in the House. Depending on the numbers, and assuming Ignatieff could give the Governor General some assurance, sans coalition, of its stability, a Liberal minority government would then follow.

That’s fine. It’s how the system works. But it still presents Ignatieff with a problem, and Harper with an opportunity. The problem for Iggy is similar, though less acute, to that which bedeviled him so long as coalition talk was in the air. His strategy for winning left-leaning voters, who might otherwise vote NDP, depends upon insisting that they must vote Liberal to keep the Tories out — that unless the Liberals win the most seats, they are doomed to be governed by the Conservatives. But if in fact the Conservatives can be removed from power without giving the Liberals more seats — if the other parties can combine to defeat them in the House and put the Liberals in government in their place — then the NDP-leaning voter can vote Dipper in good conscience, and the traditional Liberal fear campaign loses its potency.

To be sure, Ignatieff can plead with voters to give him enough seats to persuade the Governor General to call upon him: without the cement of a coalition deal, he’ll need some other means of proving his ability to provide stable government. But it doesn’t have quite the same dire appeal as Us or Them.

That’s why Iggy is so reluctant to talk about what would happen if the Liberals don’t win the most seats. (Even the no-coalition pledge neglects to mention it, an elision which at first appeared as if it might have been intended to provide an escape hatch, but which I am accepting the party’s word does not.) And that’s why it’s perfectly fair game for Harper to talk it up. He just has to be less hysterical about it.

It’s not a matter of such parliamentary transfers of power, by a vote of the House rather than a vote of the people, being “illegitimate” — an argument he is in no position to maintain. And he’ll have a hard time keeping up the argument that Ignatieff is simply lying through his teeth for five weeks. The point is, he doesn’t need to. All he needs to do is point out that the most probable alternative to a Conservative majority is not a Liberal majority, but a Liberal minority, in cahoots with the NDP and the Bloc. It needn’t be a coalition, with New Democrats in cabinet and all that, but it would still very likely involve some sort of deal that would pull the Liberals to the left — particularly if the Liberals do not possess even the plurality of seats in the House, and must pitch the Governor General on their ability to hold a government together. (Of course, if by some miracle the Liberals seemed headed for a majority, that argument would be moot. But then Ignatieff would face a different problem: NDP switchers defecting back to the left to force him to work with the Dips.)

That’s Harper’s appeal to centre-right voters: Us or All of Them. But it also has the virtue of reminding left-wing voters of their options. And if he doesn’t, you may be sure Layton and Duceppe will. Iggy may have put the coalition monkey to bed, but he still has a problem on his hands.

CODA: The problem facing Harper until now has been this: so long as the choice appeared to be between a Conservative majority and a Conservative minority, a certain number of centre-right voters preferred the latter. That’s one reason he’s been unable to get above 40% in the polls.

But the election presents an opportunity to recast that choice, since it presumably removes the option of a Conservative minority: such a government would almost certainly be defeated at the first opportunity. So now Harper can present the choice as one between a Conservative majority and — on present standings — a Liberal minority, heavily dependent on the NDP and the Bloc.

That sort of government might sound perfectly fine to a lot of voters, but not to the ones he needs: centre-right, Lib-Con switchers. The ones who until now have been opting for a Conservative minority. He’s got to impress upon them that that’s no longer an option.

The Commons: Good morning Montreal

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, March 27, 2011 at 10:44 AM - 17 Comments

At 9 o’clock this morning, Mr. Ignatieff’s bus stopped in Montreal’s Mile End neighbourhood. The Liberal leader disembarked and he and Martin Cauchon, the former Liberal cabinet minister and current candidate in Outremont, proceeded to go for a not-quite-spontaneous stroll down Saint-Viateur, a small horde of humanity and technology clamouring around them as they went. On an even colder morning than the one before, Mr. Ignatieff wore his bright scarf and his long black coat. He recklessly went without gloves.

A woman stepped out of a rotisserie to say hi and cheer him on. “Bravo! Bravo!” she clapped. Another half block and then across the street to Cafe Olimpico, where football banners hung on the wall and women’s curling played on the TVs. After sufficiently working the room, it was off to a cafe back up the road, pausing along the way to greet a small boy with a small puppy. Once at the second cafe, he ordered an espresso and chatted up the barista. As cameras clicked away, the barista outlined his concerns about recently installed parking meters on the street.

After sitting to chat with some of the customers, he was off again. Crossing back over the street, he and the horde headed for St-Viateur Bagel. There he posed for the cameras—lightly tossing a hot bagel in the air at one point—and bagged an opportunistic coalition of poppy seed, sesame seed and blueberry.

Who's on first

By Andrew Coyne - Sunday, March 27, 2011 at 10:06 AM - 51 Comments

Argh. I had a feeling something wasn’t quite right as I was typing it, and should have checked: it’s not actually true, as both the Liberals and I have lately suggested, that the party that wins the most seats in an election has the right under convention to be called upon first to form a government.

In fact, as a scholarly friend reminded me, it is the party in power at the time the election was called who has that right. The presumption is that it enjoys the confidence of the House until the House votes otherwise. Of course, in most cases the incumbent party, having suffered defeat at the polls and knowing defeat is certain in the House, does not attempt to hold onto power. But not always.

As I should have remembered, an important exception was the trigger event for the King-Byng affair. Defeated in the election of 1925 by Arthur Meighen’s Conservatives — with 101 seats to Meighen’s 116 — Mackenzie King nevertheless insisted on the right to form a government, hoping to persuade the 28 Progressive MPs to support him. A reluctant Lord Byng agreed, on condition that he would then call upon Meighen if King were ever defeated in the House.

When that moment arrived, however, King nevertheless demanded Byng dissolve the House and call new elections. Byng refused, citing their agreement, and asked Meighen to form a government instead. King seized on the supposed “interference” by a foreign potentate as an issue which he used to great effect in the next campaign.

A more recent almost-example: after the defeat of Paul Martin’s Liberals in the election of 2006, there was a brief flurry of speculation that Martin might try some sort of last-ditch deal to remain in government. He immediately ended it by announcing his resignation.

CODA: While incompetence explains my mistake, I suspect this was not an entirely honest error on the Liberals’ part. Rather, it was to put Harper on the spot, to foreclose any chance of him trying to carry on without a plurality of the seats on election day. Hence Ignatieff’s demand to know whether Harper agreed “with how I have described the workings of our democratic system.”

It’s a hard enough case to make, politically, at the best of times — “I may not have won the most seats, but I’m still Prime Minister, dammit!” — but given the stands Harper has taken, probably impossible. In other words, Ignatieff’s giving Harper a taste of his own populist, constitutional-niceties-be-damned medicine.

Two questions for Stephen Harper

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, March 27, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 60 Comments

In light of all this confusion surrounding Mr. Harper’s previous practice and present stance on parliamentary cooperation, there are perhaps two questions that might (need?) be asked of the Conservative leader for the sake of clarification.

1. What “options” did you intend the Governor General to consider when you, along with Mr. Duceppe and Mr. Layton, wrote to her in September 2004?

2. In 1997, you said if the Liberal majority government of the day was ever reduced to a minority government, there would be an opportunity for one of the other parties “to form a coalition or working alliance with the others.” In 2004, during your news conference with Mr. Duceppe and Mr. Layton, you were asked if you were prepared to form government and said such a scenario was “extremely hypothetical.” You and your party now argue that only the party that wins the most seats can form government. Why and when did your views change on the functioning of our parliamentary system?