This is why we can’t have cooperative things

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at 10:44 AM - 35 Comments

Chris Selley blames Stephane Dion for the continued toxicity of coalition governance.

Coalition-demonizers like Stephen Harper tend to take more heat in the media than coalition-boosters like Mr. Dion. And the demonizers deserve what they get. It’s appalling that Canadian politicians and their supporters, who know perfectly well how Parliament works and would happily support a coalition if it favoured their side, will go around talking of coups d’état, pretending as if Canadian voters directly elect their governments…

That said, Mr. Dion and his backers did plenty of harm themselves. His coalition was hamstrung by the explicit support of the Bloc Québécois, but its even more fundamental problem was that Mr. Dion had promised not to form a coalition. This isn’t a minor policy flip-flop. We’re talking about someone promising never to become prime minister under certain circumstances, and then reneging. A promise is not nullified because it would have been awkward not to make it.

Welcome to the club

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 at 10:58 AM - 30 Comments

The Conservatives formally initiate Brian Topp with a leaked memo of partisan attacks.

“Topp is a union boss and has deep union ties,” they say in a memo to MPs and party faithful. “How could Brian Topp speak on behalf of all Canadians, when he is so tied to big union special interests…

“Topp is not just the candidate of union bosses but also NDP insiders,” the Tories say, noting that he worked for former Saskatchewan premier Roy Romanow, former left-wing Toronto mayor David Miller and former NDP leader Audrey McLaughlin.

And if that does make Tories shake in their boots, the party back-roomers add that “Brian Topp is most notable for being NDP Leader’s hand-picked negotiator in the coalition talks with the separatist Bloc Québécois … Brian Topp will do anything – including forming a wreckless [sic] coalition with separatists – in order to gain power.”

Via Twitter, Brian Topp pronounces himself honoured.

Is it safe to talk about a coalition?

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 10:52 AM - 15 Comments

Chris Selley says the New Democrats and Liberals should talk about a coalition before they talk about a merger.

… there’s very little standing in the way of such an arrangement except a little bit of leadership — legitimate coalitions cannot come from elections in which they’ve been explicitly disavowed — and, of course, an election result that makes it possible.

Both parties have much to do, if they’re to achieve such an outcome. But there’s no reason to believe they can’t do it separately and co-operate later, and plenty to like about having more choice in political parties rather than less. It would be a shame if one big idea was discounted in pursuit of another.

If memory serves, Jack Layton’s stance in the last election was that the NDP would work with any party in the House of Commons. If that position holds, the onus would seem to be on the Liberals to take a similarly open-minded position.

'The Liberals walked away from an opportunity to throw Harper out'

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, May 20, 2011 at 5:02 PM - 103 Comments

Former NDP MP Tony Martin looks back on his time in Ottawa.

I thought we had a real chance at a progressive government in the fall and winter of 2008-2009 – the coalition. For me, the lowlight was not being able to achieve that. I thought we had a chance to achieve a progressive government that would have allowed us to do a whole bunch of things, including working on the reduction of poverty. The government we have has no interest in doing anything about poverty. The lowlight was we didn’t achieve it and that the Liberals walked away from an opportunity to throw Harper out.

Two questions for Stephen Harper (III)

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 10:10 AM - 50 Comments

After interviewing Mr. Layton and Mr. Ignatieff, Peter Mansbridge will sit down with Mr. Harper on Thursday. Assuming that the parameters of our democracy might be a topic raised, here, again, are two questions for Mr. Harper.

1. Earlier in this campaign, you explained that when you referred to “options” in the your letter to the Governor General in September 2004, you hoped only that she would give you the opportunity to assure her that you were not intending to defeat the Liberal government. University of New Brunswick professor Don Desserud has quibbled with this understanding of convention, suggesting the only options for the Governor General would have been to call an election or ask the leader of the opposition, in this case you, if he had the opportunity to form a government. Do you believe the Governor General can compel the Prime Minister to work with the opposition parties or do you believe you were given poor advice in 2004?

2. In an essay penned with Tom Flanagan some years ago you spoke favourably of an “alliance” between regional parties and lamented for the “winner-take-all style of politics” in Canada. In 1997, during an interview with TVO, 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?

Statement of the obvious

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 5:07 PM - 126 Comments

Michael Ignatieff reminds everyone how our democracy works.

If the governor general wants to call on other parties, or myself, for example, to try and form a government, then we try to form a government,” Ignatieff told CBC’s Peter Mansbridge in an exclusive interview Tuesday afternoon.

“That’s exactly how the rules work and what I’m trying to say to Canadians is, I understand the rules, I respect the rules, I will follow them to the letter and I’m not going to form a coalition. What I’m prepared to do is talk to Mr. Layton or Mr. Duceppe or even Mr. Harper and say, ‘We have an issue, and here’s the plan that I want to put before Parliament, this is the budget I would bring in,’ and then we take it from there.”

Harper's been pondering coalitions for longer than I thought

By John Geddes - Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 4:38 PM - 43 Comments

How far back can we trace Stephen Harper’s intense interest in the possibility of coalition government?

Most likely you would answer that Harper’s been preoccupied with the idea since the fall 2008 bid by the Liberals and the NDP to form a coalition, backed by the Bloc Québécois, to supplant his minority.

Or perhaps you would speculate that he must have been pondering the coalition permutations and combinations back in late 2004. That’s when he signed that much-debated letter to the governor-general with Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe, suggesting that one or more of their three parties might somehow govern—without an intervening election—if the Liberal minority of the day fell.

Even though Harper, Layton and Duceppe evidently had in mind some looser form of Parliamentary cooperation (Harper denies even that much), their discussions must have at least touched on the notion of a full coalition—if only for long enough to reject it.

But I’ve come across an old campaign-trail quote that suggests both those answers for the advent of Harper’s concern about coalitions are wrong. Continue…

Mansbridge v. Layton

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 10:57 AM - 27 Comments

The NDP leader talks to the CBC host.

Layton said “there’s no question” Harper’s goal in 2004 talks with his party and the Bloc Quebecois was to become prime minister. Harper has also denied that he was trying to topple the Martin government and seize power in 2004.

Layton told Mansbridge that Harper is “fabricating things here.” Layton said the Conservative leader, who was then the Leader of the Official Opposition, was the driving force for the “arrangement” with other opposition parties at the time. ”We were called together by Stephen Harper to send a letter to the governor general to make it clear that if Paul Martin was defeated by the speech from the throne, she should turn to the other parties to govern,” Layton told the CBC’s Peter Mansbridge on board his campaign bus near Charlottetown. ”There was no question about it that the ultimate goal here was for Stephen Harper to become prime minister.”

From the magazine

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, April 16, 2011 at 1:09 PM - 55 Comments

I spent last Sunday hanging around with Stephane Dion. Here is what that was like.

If you’re interested in a director’s cut, full of never-before-seen material, see below.

You can add this as a post-script to what I wrote the night of the 2008 election.

Continue…

This complicated democracy

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, April 15, 2011 at 1:35 PM - 36 Comments

Frances Woolley sets out to consider the efficiencies of vote-swapping and ends up considering the nature of our democracy.

The question is the wrong one to ask. If Party A wins three seats, then it can pursue policies that benefit people who do (or potentially might) vote for party A. If parties A, B and C win one seat each, they will pursue policies that benefit a different set of electors, not just those who vote for party A. But will a coalition government pursue policies that benefit a broader section of the electorate?

It’s not obvious. It all depends what happens at the coalition stage, when different parties are attempting to form governments. An interesting working paper by Amedeo Piolatto argues that, in certain circumstances, the power wielded by small parties in the coalition formation process can cause proportional representation systems to lead to political outcomes that are less representative of the interests of the broader population than first past the post type systems.

The Ontario accord

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, April 15, 2011 at 9:46 AM - 3 Comments

David Peterson and Bob Rae talk to The Mark about the Liberal-NDP accord in Ontario

How bout now?

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 14, 2011 at 12:47 PM - 29 Comments

After this and this comes this new attempt to pin Canadians down on what they will and will not accept from their Parliament.

The party with the most seats forms the government and seeks support from other parties on a case-by-case basis. Acceptable 72% Unacceptable 12%

The party with the most seats enters into a coalition with another party in order to form a government. Acceptable 57% Unacceptable 27%

Two or more parties, none of which have the most seats individually, enter into a coalition in order to form a majority government. Acceptable 48% Unacceptable 33%

Of course, none of those options appear on anyone’s ballot. And these options don’t fully cover the options available to the parties in Parliament.

Vague notions

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 7, 2011 at 1:55 PM - 49 Comments

Fifty-four percent of Canadians prefer a Liberal-NDP coalition to a Conservative majority, but a plurality of Canadians feel uneasy about the idea of coalition government.

When you think about the idea of a coalition government in Canada do you have a positive, somewhat positive, somewhat negative, or negative impression?

Positive 18%
Somewhat positive 22%
Somewhat negative 17%
Negative 32%
Unsure 12%

Two questions for Stephen Harper (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, April 4, 2011 at 8:46 AM - 55 Comments

In light of what we saw and heard during the first week of the 41st general election, those two questions for Mr. Harper need to be updated.

1. Last week, you explained that when you referred to “options” in the your letter to the Governor General in September 2004, you hoped only that she would give you the opportunity to assure her that you were not intending to defeat the Liberal government. University of New Brunswick professor Don Desserud has quibbled with this understanding of convention, suggesting the only options would have been to call an election or ask the leader of the opposition, in this case you, if he had the opportunity to form a government. Do you believe the Governor General can compel the Prime Minister to work with the opposition parties or do you believe you were given poor advice in 2004?

2. In an essay penned with Tom Flanagan some years ago you spoke favourably of an “alliance” between regional parties and lamented for the “winner-take-all style of politics” in Canada. In 1997, during an interview with TVO, 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?

Options that don't appear on the ballot

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, April 2, 2011 at 9:59 AM - 109 Comments

Ipsos Reid asks Canadians to choose between a Liberal-NDP coalition and a Conservative majority.

A new Ipsos Reid poll conducted for Global National and Postmedia News indicates the majority of Canadians would prefer to see a Liberal-NDP coalition government (54 per cent) than a Conservative majority government (46 per cent). Also, almost half of Canadians (48 per cent) support the idea of a coalition of opposition parties forming the government. A little more than half (52 per cent) of Canadians oppose the idea.

Coalition watch

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 4:49 PM - 7 Comments

The NDP has nominated a new candidate in Elgin-Middlesex-London.

Rest assured, the Conservative managed to rush out a new attack ad before their preferred narrative was undermined.

What Stephen Harper was writing in 1997

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 25 Comments

Terry Milewski digs up an essay penned by Stephen Harper and Tom Flanagan around the same time the former was saying things like this. It sketches a potential Reform-Progressive Conservative “alliance”—as opposed to a merger—and then turns to the question of Quebec.

If Quebec stays in Confederation, the Bloc will either disintegrate or become an autonomist party, participating in federal politics as a representative of Quebec’s specific interests. Philosophically, it is logical for liberals to offer Quebec money and privileged treatment, while conservatives find it easier to offer autonomy and enhanced jurisdiction. On that basis, a strategic alliance of Quebec nationalists with conservatives outside Quebec might become possible, and it might be enough to sustain a government.

None of this will be easy or even likely. But experience shows that a monolithic conservative party is unworkable; so conservatives who are unhappy with a one-party-plus system featuring the Liberals as the perpetual governing party may have little choice but to construct an alliance, at least of the two anglophone sisters, and perhaps ultimately including a third sister. An alliance would face many difficulties, to be sure, but it would also have two great advantages. It would reflect the regional and cultural character of Canadian society, and it would give that character an institutional expression. Also, it would allow leaders of the regional parties to defend necessary compromises as precisely that — necessary compromises. In a single national party, compromises have to be defended as party policy, which tends to drive dissenters out of the fold.

Mr. Harper and Mr. Flanagan then concluded with an ode to political cooperation, including mention of the “coalition governments” that exist in Europe. Continue…

What he was trying to say

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 3:19 PM - 32 Comments

Stephen Harper was apparently asked today about his comments in 1997 about a future “coalition or working alliance” among parties in Parliament.

“This clip was a clip of me discussing uniting the right,” Mr. Harper told reporters Tuesday. “I don’t think it was any secret we were trying to bring together the Progressive Conservatives, the Reform Alliance and the Democratic Representatives. We were very clear we were looking for mechanisms to bring us together – and we did create a merger as you know.”

He stressed: “I have never attempted to take office without winning an election. The other guys did.”

The TVO interview seems to have occurred shortly after Mr. Harper resigned in 1997 and, as Paul notes, the Democratic Representative Caucus wouldn’t come into existence for another four years. (When Mr. Harper spoke, five parties existed: the Liberals, Progressive Conservatives, Bloc Quebecois, NDP and Reform.)

That aside, his specific comments in 1997 about the future arrangement of our parliamentary democracy seemed to exceed both a simple merger of the PCs and Reform and his contention now that only the party that wins the most seats can form government.

Continue…

Harper's version

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, March 28, 2011 at 3:17 PM - 88 Comments

Though it’s not reported exactly what question was put to him, Stephen Harper seems to have explained this morning what he meant when he asked Adrienne Clarkson in 2004 to consider her “options.”

“What was the option? The option was very clear. It’s the option we did. Which was as opposition leader I was seeking to put pressure on the government to influence its agenda without bringing it down, without defeating it and replacing it.”

Harper said that at the time, Martin was saying that any change in government policy, no matter how small, would be treated as a confidence measure and he would go to the governor general. “My position was if he did that the governor general should come to us. I would have told the governor general we in fact are not trying to bring the government down. All Mr. Martin has to do is sit down and talk with us. And I’m sure we will find a resolution.”

This, though it would seem to involve dabbling with the confidence convention, is similar to what Mr. Harper said when asked in 2004 about the letter to the governor general and whether he was interested in forming government. Except that at that time, he described the possibility of forming government as “extremely hypothetical.” Both Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe maintain Mr. Harper was interested in the possibility of forming government at the time, despite being one of the “losers” of the 2004 election.

Nonetheless, if this answers the first of those two questions for Mr. Harper, that leaves only the second in need of a response.

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…

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…

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…

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?