As opposition candidates furiously scramble for your vote, try this one on them when they knock on your door: coalition government.
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Other than oversized egos and playground immaturity, there is no good reason why the Libs, the NDP and possibly the Bloc and the Greens (if they elect someone) couldn’t cobble together a working – hell, an exciting – government that really does represent the majority of Canadians.
It’s either that or more of Harper’s take-no-prisoners minority stylings. So if you don’t relish the idea of another election in two years (that would make four in six years), there are alternatives.
But pols and the Canadian people need to fasten their seat belts and get ready for it.
Pre-eminent Canadian constitutional expert Peter Russell thinks that both Stéphane Dion and Jack Layton need to begin making a Plan B, assuming that each of their Plan As – becoming PM – doesn’t go as planned.
“Plan B would give the Governor General an option she didn’t have when Harper arrogantly asked for the dissolution of the last Parliament,” he says.
“The plan would consist of Dion and Layton combining their strength in either a coalition government where cabinet positions are held by members of each party or a legislative accord similar to that of David Peterson’s Liberals and Bob Rae’s NDP in Ontario’s 1985 election.”
(After agreeing on a set of legislative priorities and a two-year time frame of support, the NDP propped up a Lib minority government even though the Conservatives under Frank Miller had won more seats than either in the Ontario Legislature.)
“The two parties seem unlikely to get half the seats in the House, so they’d have to do some road-testing with the Bloc,” says Russell.
Although Harper tries to position his party as the most fiscally prudent (now, that is a knee-slapper), the NDP and the Libs would be steadier with the public purse and their expenditures would be more in line with what most Canadians want.
“They share significant social policy common ground,” says Russell, whose most recent book is Two Cheers For Minority Government. “There’s childcare and pharmacare that they could agree on. The Kelowna Accord could be a deal-maker for both parties and the Bloc.”
But it isn’t a slam dunk. The reasons why Governor General Michaëlle Jean didn’t have an option last time out may still be in play after this election: the weakness of Dion’s leadership within the Liberal party and what Russell calls the NDP’s identity anxiety.
In other words, the opposition parties were not ready to offer the GG any alternative. “The NDP are sensitive to being associated with the Liberals, fearing that voters may conclude that there isn’t much difference between them,” Russell says. And if the Liberal party takes out the knives for Dion, then forget about the whole thing.
Of the two Plan Bs, Russell feels that a legislative accord is the more appealing and doable. Doling out cabinet positions at the best of times is a blood sport. Imagine how it would work over two parties. “The coalition option doesn’t seem as Canadian. Having two parties making decisions around a cabinet table seems a bit like wonderland,” he says.
Whichever way it goes, having federal parties working together to thwart a Harper government of any shape would feel like a fairy tale come true.
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