Inkless Wells

Paul Wells on all the latest out of Ottawa—along with the occasional post about jazz. Follow Paul on Twitter: @InklessPW
He also offers his thoughtful perspective of Stephen Harper’s last 10 years in his recent eBook, The Harper Decade.

Categories: Capital Read, Inkless Wells

The sound of stopping Harper

by Paul Wells on Wednesday, April 6, 2011 11:04pm - 226 Comments

Two articles today make arguments Stephen Harper predicted on the day in March when he visited Rideau Hall. Tonight’s, from Postmedia:

“‘Say Mr. Harper is returned with a comparable minority’ to what he has now, says Franks. ‘Say within a few weeks of Parliament meeting there’s a vote on the speech to the throne and Mr. Harper is defeated. The Governor General is then entitled to determine if any other party leader will enjoy the confidence of the House of Commons.’

“…Ignatieff has not explicitly ruled out the idea of trying to lead a non-coalition, minority Liberal government if the Conservatives fail to secure the majority Harper says is crucial for the country, and then fail to secure enough support in Parliament to govern.”

This morning’s, from the Globe:

“Stack it all up, set events in motion, and they tumble toward a Tory minority government quickly falling and being replaced by a Liberal government propped up by at least the NDP. (Conservative partisans: Please note the lack of the word ‘coalition’ in the preceding sentence. Liberal partisans: Please note that nothing your leader has promised rules out such a move.)

“…Errol Mendes, professor of constitutional and international law at the University of Ottawa’s faculty of law, says there will be no stay of execution: whatever the risks, the opposition will move immediately. The Tories are ‘doomed’ in a minority situation, he says…”

There will be more and more of this discussion as election day approaches. Its effect on voter intentions is hard to predict.

Tags: coalition, Election 2011, except it's technically not a coalition, Stephen Harper

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DBM

Mendes and Franks aren't addressing at least 2 possibilities -

1. The government fails to secure the confidence of the house, and the opposition is unwilling to attempt to govern. (this is, I think, an extremely possible scenario if a Liberal minority would be forced to rely heavily on Bloc support.)

2. Another member of the Conservative caucus (i.e. someone other than Stephen Harper) solicits the opportunity to command the confidence of the house.

alfanerd

You forgot an other equally likely possibility:

3. Ignatieff reveals himself to be a reptilian extra-terrestrial monster with super powers and after losing the election he eats Canada.

Blue

Play with words all you like but these opposition parties will go down in history as the group that referred to our democratically elected government as contemptible.

Andrew (not PorC)

Well, not quite. They ruled that the government was in contempt of Parliament, not that they are contemptible in general (though that may be true!). They were in contempt of Parliament's unconditional power to call for documents and persons as it deems fit in its oversight of government activity. Do you deny that the government was withholding documents, contrary to Parliamentary privilege? Seems pretty cut and dried to me.
Bill M

And the Conservatives will go down in history as the most contemptible government in history.

Blue

I thought that was an interesting question posed by Eva and I really would like to have heard some intelligent answers and we received some from Tiger but, as usual, the thread was hijacked for selfish reasons.

And no, I have no wish to moderate, and I do understand your dilemma, but sometimes I feel if you don`t speak out against the hijacking above, then you are part of the problem.

http://tigeronpolitics.wordpress.com Ben (The Tiger)

Well, the useful hypothetical question is, "could Parliament's sitting be put off till fall?"

The answer is, "Yes".

Though we've learned something else — because of the timing of supply bills and the like, the government would probably run out of money by July. So Parliament has to sit by then, or the country will grind to a halt. (No constitutional requirement till March 2012, tho'.)

Very useful sub-thread, I say.

Andrew (not PorC)

That's not going to happen. Why on earth would the GG do something so provocative?

OriginalEmily1

If Harper didn't have enough votes, yet refused to resign, and refused to call parliament….of course the GG would dismiss him. That's the GG's job.

LdKitchenersOwn

True, but I only see the GG doing that if either A) Harper comes in second or worse in the election but refuses to resign AND loses a vote on a Throne Speech or B) he wins the most seats but refuses to call Parliament to sit beyond the one year limit (Parliament being required to sit at least once a year).

I think Andrew's right that the Tories aren't going to come in second or worse, so I do think THAT scenario is not going to happen; and while I suppose I could THEORETICALLY see Harper refusing to allow Parliament to sit beyond March 26th, 2012, I REALLY don't think that's going to happen either.

That said, if Harper wins another plurality, but refuses to allow Parliament to sit until sometime beyond March 26th, 2012, then I do agree that under that circumstance the GG not only CAN dismiss him, but WOULD dismiss him (and, in fact would be OBLIGATED to dismiss him). In that scenario I would not even describe such a dismissal as "provocative" as Andrew does, I'd say that in that scenario, dismissing Harper would be the only choice the GG could make.

OriginalEmily1

I have no idea why people are parsing all this when it's a) straightforward and b) not likely to happen.

However if any PM refuses to resign in such circumstances it does indeed fall to the GG to pry his fingernails out of the doorjamb. LOL

LdKitchenersOwn

However if any PM refuses to resign in such circumstances it does indeed fall to the GG to pry his fingernails out of the doorjamb.

Which circumstances???

The last time a PM refused to resign the GG at the time let him stay as PM even though he was outnumbered in the House by the two main opposition parties, who wanted to form a government, and he had LOST HIS OWN SEAT IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. The King-Byng affair revolved around EXACTLY the scenario of a PM with a plurality being outnumbered in the House by his main rivals but refusing to resign and wishing to stay as PM until actually losing a vote in Parliament. The precedent set in that case was that the PM was NOT forced to resign and/or dismissed by the GG, and was in fact permitted to continue as PM even though he was no longer even a Member of Parliament.
OriginalEmily1

Sigh…the circumstances we've just spent numerous posts discussing.

And please don't quote 1926 to me
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%E2%80%93Byng_Af…
LdKitchenersOwn

Sigh…the circumstances we've just spent numerous posts discussing

I'm pretty sure you've presented at least three different sets of hypothetical circumstances in our postings here, so I wanted to know which of those you were referring to in your last post.

That said, I realize that this was silly, and I have no idea why I so often do this (even while lightly mocking others who do this with you too) so I'll now back away slowly…

John D

This is all based on the erroneous assumption that most Canadians think of politics in terms of left/right like political hacks do. If you look at actual voting preferences you will see a lot of people that waver between the Conservatives and the NDP. You cannot make the assumption that because someone votes for a "left" party they will vote for ANY left party.

James

Some people waver between the Right and the NDP – polls do show its about 25% of their support. the other 25% would not vote at all, and 50% would support the Liberals. And this isn't even counting the greens + bloq whose supporters are even less inclined to have the conservatives as their second option.

Nanos showed a couple of weeks ago that among the 62% of Canadians who are choosing a non-CPC party, less than 5% are showing the CPC as their second choice.

Again: the only reason you are able to govern is because of FPTP + rule of the minority. You can never win 50%+1 in this country, because more than half of this country despises what you stand for.

Orson Bean

That is an incredibly simplistic account of Canadian voting behaviour. Again, as others point out, you continue to labour under the delusion that all people who don't vote for the CPC are voting for some coherent opposition entity and are voting for the exact same motives (to vanquish Evil Lord Harper, of course).

alfanerd

yeah because that's what corresponds to their experience. most voters dont vote for an MP, they vote for a party. at least that's what they think. and in fact, this view is reinforced left all over the place.

but you're still an idiot, and you still insulted every immigrant by suggesting that they vote based on what their neighbors think.

you're like that retarded lady who worked for the ny times who said after bush was elected "how could he win? i dont know anybody who voted for him". That says alot more about your isolated and incestuous worldview than anything else.
Blue

Guys—–as far as the outcome of the election, it really doesn`t matter what any of us partisans think about the actions of the last Parliament. What matters is the feelings of the voters out there, who will decide if the reasons the opposition Parties are giving for referring to our government in contempt is sufficient to force a Spring Election on us.

That will be as big a problem for the Liberals as the Coalition talk.

Thwim

You are correct. Please don't presume to speak for them.

FVerhoeven

Canadians either will elect a majority government

or

Canadians will elect a coalition government with the balance of power to be handed to the BQ

For me the choice is clear.

I will always choose for a working federal Canada.
FVerhoeven

http://www.threehundredeight.blogspot.com/

most Canadians are willing to give Harper a chance at a majority.

But:

The anti-Harper crowd is trying to build up momentum by having nothing to offer by empty anti-Harper rhetoric. For the next few weeks, this anti-Harper shouting will continue, as it did during the last election.

Towards the end of the election campaign, wait for Ms.Atwood to do her customary anti-Harper rallying cry which will shortly thereafter be followed up by the CBC Compass results, showing us that Canadians want the Liberals back in power.

I can hardly wait!
FVerhoeven

Quebecers have a free choice: Quebecers can either vote for a separatist party, the BQ which publically states it is a separatist party,
or Quebecers can vote for any of the federal parties

But:

Canadians have a free choice also: Canadians can either vote for a majority government (accomplished by any of the federal parties)
or Canadians can vote for a minority government in which Canadians are willing to hand over the balance of power to a separatist party.

Because Canadians have allowed a separatist/provincial party to run in Canadian federal elections, we now find ourselves in this constitutional mess. And it won't be cleared up untill Canadians make a clear choice.
LdKitchenersOwn

On the day of the election it's determined if he has enough support to form a govt.

No, it isn't, that's wrong on a number of levels, the most important of which being that we'd have no idea on election day if he has enough support to from a government unless there is OBVIOUSLY a party a head of him, or he has a majority. If he has the most seats he MIGHT have enough support to form a government, and he might not. There has to be a vote in the House to determine that, the election itself is insufficient in that regard.

And, no, he can't just lose and refuse to call Parliament indefinitely, Parliament has to sit once a year, but until that deadline approaches he's under no constitutional obligation to have Parliament sit. He could constitutionally remain PM for a fair amount of time without Parliament sitting, though I do agree that under certain election result scenarios such a move by the PM might be one of those rare events that makes a GG take advantage of some of his reserve powers. If Harper won the most seats though I don't think even the GG would do anything until it became obvious that the Tories intended to have Parliament fail to sit for more than a year, and perhaps even then the GG might not do anything until the day after the year ended.

OriginalEmily1

The whole country knows the election results LKO

If he has a minority…he has two choices….resign, or try and form a govt.

LdKitchenersOwn

The whole country knows the election results LKO

Knowing the election results and knowing how all of the elected MPs are going to vote on a specific Speech from the Throne are two entirely different things. What's more, even if we KNOW on election day EXACTLY how the vote on a Tory Speech from the Throne is going to go down, the Tories still have the right to present the Speech, and the vote in the House still has to actually be held.

If he has a minority…he has two choices….resign, or try and form a govt.

That last part is pretty true (though I might rephrase it as "he has two choices, resign or try to CONTINUE TO FORM the government"). However, if Harper chooses the "form a government" route he is under no legal obligation to immediately call Parliament to sit and deliver a Speech from the Throne to them the day after the election. Or the week after the election. Or the month after the election. He could, in theory, wait until March 25th 2012 and present a Speech from the Throne to Parliament then. Depending upon the distribution of seats after the election, such a move could be politically suicidal, and delaying the sitting of Parliament (even short of delaying for a full year) could be seen as so patently untenable and such a repudiation of the will of the voters that a GG might theoretically present Harper with an ultimatum of the "demonstrate your ability to command the support of a majority of the House of Commons or I'll dismiss you as PM" variety. However, I think that even under that ultimatum the deadline would be "demonstrate your ability to command the support of a majority of the House of Commons before March 26th 2012", not "hold a vote on a Speech from the Throne right now or you're gone".

OriginalEmily1

Well all the Opposition leaders have already said they won't support the same budget….and that's a confidence motion

They also won't support a govt found in contempt of parliament, and that will be the confidence motion from the throne speech.

Yes, the vote has to be held….that's what I've said all along…..there is no 'postponing parliament for a year' nonsense.

If he tried that, the GG would toss his ass.

Aview

It appears the minority have an UlteriorMotive by dissolving parliament – why(?) when it appears the polls where not favorable for them. The minorities orchestrate a "contempt" plan ( note if the party in power was a majority there would have been no contempt – this is pretty nebulous stuff – a world 1st(?). There maybe some evidence of coalition;
- the NDP leader started the election by stating in a speech he was ready to be PM(?) (well history has not shown that would happen with a majority ),
-the LIb leader has not said no to coalition(?),
- it appears we have liberals dropping out in strong NDP ridings and Libs dropping out in strong NDP ridings(?) – note there have been 2 to date.
- Tory leader stated the Libs Red Book just released the NDP election platform.
- the Bloc plan…leave no Conservative Seat unturned in Quebec.
http://twitter.com/CanadianSense @CanadianSense

Deny a coalition, voters will pass their judgment at advance polls and May 2, 2011. What could go wrong?
TimesArrow

Thanks SS. Much as i would love to see Harper shown the door, it is unlikely, unless the libs catch fire…i rest my case.

Your scenario is both a hopeful and a more realistic one.
alfanerd

all these things that harper has done until now, may not have occurred in a majority. you're obviously allowed to extrapolate. that's what Im doing as well. im extrapolating what the liberals are doing and saying in opposition, and in my view they are a bunch of opportunistic power hungry buffoons with no moral compass.

they give lip service to climate change. that alone is enough for me to not vote for them under any circumstances.

they treat Khadr as a canadian hero. that is more then enough for me.

many of them marched in a pro-hezbollah march. i dont need to read their platform to know i wont vote for them.

their brightest star is a former NDP (NPD!!!!) premier who nearly bankrupted my province (which was then saved by a certain mike harris, much to the dismay of the usual supsects). i dont care if today they have a wicked platform (they dont). im not even considering voting for them for a nanosecond.

you can go on all you want, and if iggy is PM he may yet surprise me. but just as you have the right to fear a harper majority without any actual evidence as to how he would govern, i have the right to despise the thought of iggy as pm based on these tidbits of info.
alfanerd

as for the Libs in the 90s, i agree with you. i voted Liberal then and if JC was there instead of Iggy I could see myself voting for him.

the JC-PM team of PM and finance minister was great. Paul Martin as PM was very much a downgrade. let's not even mention Dion. Iggy is a poor substitute.

Thwim

Give one reason why they wouldn't have occured in a majority. Please explain why appointing Fortier was something that would only happen under a minority government situation. Go ahead.

I mean sure, you can say there's no evidence, but that's like saying there's no evidence a train will hit you if you stand on the tracks. There's a clear line from where he's been to where you get run-over, with nothing that suggests it won't happen, other than your hopes of some sort of hidden agenda that hasn't yet been on display. I mean seriously, what evidence do you have that it won't happen?

Beyond that, all parties are giving lip service to climate change.
Nobody is treating Khadr as a hero, but a lot of people wouldn't mind seeing him treated as a Canadian.
The march you might have something on. Don't vote for Denis Coderre then.
As for Rae, he didn't nearly bankrupt the province, economists look at what Rae did today and are generally in agreement that he saved it from what would have been bankruptcy. It's only Conservative spin that he made it that bad, he took what was going to be catastrophic, and kept it contained to only terrible, and wound up being vilified by the unions on the left for forcing them to take pay cuts, and by the financiers on the right, for running under the NDP flag.

Try actually looking at history rather than just feeling it.

alfanerd

maybe harper would behave the same under a majority. my point is we dont know. i think its fair that everything happening under a minority is influenced by the fact that there is a minority. i expect much more conservative budgets once they get a majority and will be sorely disappointed if they dont materialize.

as for your train analogy, i dont buy it for the above reasons. i sympathize with harper trying to govern in the situation he's been in – he needs to please his base and satisfy a hysterical and power hungry opposition. he has done so with great skill imho. i suspect that if the hysterical and power hungry opposition were not threatening him day in and day out, he would govern differently.

as for climate change, i believe you misunderstood me. i think its a non-issue. anybody whom i suspect of actually wanting to act on it, like implement a retarded green shift or cap and trade, i would never vote for.

As for Rae, good for him if he didnt cause it, but kept it "contained to only terrible" (what an endorsement). it still true that after Rae, Harris cleaned up public finances in ontario to great sacrifices to ontarians, only to have these sacrifices wasted by mcguinty.

As usual, conservatives like Harris get the bad reputation for cleaning up the Liberal and NPD mess.

westmalle

Ignatieff euchred himself on the first day when he pledged he would not form a coalition "with any federalist party" nor with or supported by the Bloc Quebecois. So if after the election he breaks his pledge and forms a majority Liberal/NDP Government (assuming that Liberal + NDP seats are more than 155 in total), that Government would be unable to govern because it would not get its legislation passed in the Senate, where the Conservatives have a majority. The Conservatives would argue that since Ignatieff broke his promise and fooled the Canadian people before the election, the "un-elected" Senate would have political cover in blocking the Government saying it was not the democratic will of the Canadian people to have a Liberal/NDP Coalition Government. New elections would have to be called, with the Conservatives then being able to say "You see, they denied it last time and they did it again. Unless there is a Conservative majority, the Liberals and the NDP will always combine to usurp the will of the people, despite their claims otherwise."

Harper has corrected the mistake that almost cost him his political career in the 2008 Coalition Crisis (leaving Senate seats vacant). He learns from his mistakes, and acts.

http://tigeronpolitics.wordpress.com Ben (The Tiger)

If the Liberals and NDP together hit 155, the Liberals would have more seats than the Tories anyway. (As the NDP won't have more than the Bloc.)

So it's a moot point.

westmalle

Doing the math

Conservatives 120
Liberals 115
NDP 41
BQ 32

Liberal + NDP = 156

http://tigeronpolitics.wordpress.com Ben (The Tiger)

That's a theoretically possible solution that practically speaking will not in this election.

The NDP is picking up maybe one seat from the Bloc, who are on offence against the Tories and the Grits.

Gilles will get his 45-50 seats at the very least. Sadly.

westmalle

Ben (TT): I agree. For this to happen Liberals would need at minimum a big come-back in Quebec versus the Bloc.

My point is that Ignatieff did not have to rule out a Liberal/NDP coalition because it might (theoretically) might have been the only route to power that could have overcome the Conservative majority in the Senate ("the Canadian people knew what they were doing when they elected a Liberal/NDP coalition"). But since Ignatieff double-crossed Layton on the 2008 Coalition anyway all this is just idle talk – it won't happen

Reverend_Blair

I think if Harper tries to act like an adult and works with the other parties, he can run a minority. If he starts his usual partisan crap and refuses to cooperate, he'll be gone. So I'm guessing he falls on the throne speech.

If Harper does win a minority…and let's not forget that his campaign is sucking donkey genitalia…and he is brought down though, I suspect the Liberals can run a relatively stable government for 18 months or a year. Such a defeat would be the end of Harper, so they would have some time while the Conservatives (and probably the NDP), replace their leaders and the new leaders get broken in.
modster99

First of all won't have time to run anything. It will be a coalition in seconds.

As for the Libs lasting 18 months, I might agree, but it would be nothing close to stable. The NDP and the Bloc would have a field day, they would all spend like drunken sailors, and the Liberals would pay the electoral price.
http://www.executiveunderground.ca Richard Westgate

A Reverend! and such language! Very funny, though.
I agree with your point. If PM_SHrug ever decided to "play well with others," he'd have had his majority long a ago, especially given the weakness of the opposition over the last few years. I am beginning to have the feeling that history will view his downfall as being caused by his obsession with "annihilating" the Liberal party. It is perhaps the most destructive motivation of any Canadian politician since I've been here. It is destructive to him, but also for the country, which is the sad part. If he were obsessed with the good of the country instead, he might even have been a great PM.
TimesArrow

Your prescription is Tory majority or Tory minority that is all but a majority in every sense but name, nothing else is legit…there's a word for that, and it doesn't start with D.
jonatwitan

Somebody who can't even write his name without making fun of him as if he was in the school yard goes on to suggest that it's all Harper's fault that the other parties won't cooperate. Yeah, okay, I'll be taking your view into serious consideration. *shaking head no* Thanks for the input Dick Sillypants!
alfanerd

something else is legit. this other option most people seem to have forgotten about because its so unlikely. but once upon a time in Canada that's how governments were formed.

think about it: the Liberals could win the election.

i know it sounds crazy, but it's a possibility.
TimesArrow

Ah, the no coalition of losers arguement re formatted, cute.

If Harper ran a truly cooperative minoriity the rug the liberals stand on would be whipped from under their feet. They could continue howling at the moon if they liked, but noone woulld be listening. People are listening now for a reason. Right now the public is trying to decide who's less wrong.