Talking Coalition on the Current this morning was fun and frustrating.
It is really pretty amazing and cool that the debate about coalition politics has reached the level of public discussion that it has. But of course, I am filled with the inner dialogue of what I coulda, woulda, shoulda said in my little minute or two.
But hey, I can get a little of that out now as I sit at 9:28 am with Anna Maria Tremonti’s bright early morning face across from me over the CBC mikes still hyperfresh in my mind!
Of course, the sexy focus of discussion on the idea of merger is soooo off the table. The real question is how two political parties which have no prospect of forming a government despite the fact that together, they represent the majority sentiment of Canadians, can take the political power they deserve away from a Republican-style right-wing minority.
The potential ways and means for achieving that are many – starting from offering tacit support to grassroots strategic voting initiatives (a la the voteforenvironment.ca campaign I was involved in last election) all the way to official non-aggression pacts a la Stephane Dion and Elizabeth May in the last election. Of all these, merger is the least interesting, attractive, sensible, worthwhile or do-able.
But hey, discussion is a good thing – despite the demonizing of debate so typical of Conservatives spin. We got to to hear that point of view on the Current this morning from Conservative spin-doctor Tim Powers and my biggest frustration is that I didn’t get to go head to head with him. Damn!
Anyway, let’s remember that the kind of cooperation we need to see in this country can take place in many different ways.
We probably need to affect the outcome in less that 20 ridings (out of 308) to create a Liberal-NDP win-win in the next election. Too bad that wasn’t discussed more but hey, this is just the beginning. And the fact that this issue is entering the mainstream media’s notion of possibilities is setting the table for a new and different course of politics that the critical times we live in will serve up over the next few months.
That’s my prediction anyway.
I’m betting Harper is going to be getting a big taste of that during the G20. Mr Control-freak is finding that out the hard way that the world is dealing with such enormous global issues that even most world leaders are onside for looking at what were once considered radical solutions. A billion dollars worth of security will not stop that process.
But I digress. Most annoying thing for me in the aftermath of the show was that I didn’t get a chance to respond to Conservative spin doctor Tim Powers. Instead I was in the position of commenting on the NDP and I do want affirm that Jack was great during the Coaltion days. But the election strategy will be a key issue.
Hopefully, the time has come for cooperative politics to de-fang those nasty right-wingers and reframe our political dialogue – wasn’t that what one of those C’s in CCF stood for? [rssbreak]
