During a late-night cruise of the news sites, I was startled to read that federal finance minister Flaherty plans to table a budget bill that would, among other things, strip all political parties of their per-vote public financing. This would disproportionately affect opposition parties. There will be a confidence vote on this as early as tomorrow or next week, and if it does not pass, the Conservative government falls, and the other parties will try to form a government. If that falls through, another election!
Near the end of his mandate, Prime Minister Chrétien eliminated union and corporate donations and set a stringent cap on personal donations. To make up for the difference, he put in public funding at $1.75/vote/year. This had the added effect of making our system a little bit more proportional: if you favour a party who has no chance of winning, at least if you vote for them they’ll get that much money.
Not only would this take that effect away, since we just came out of a federal election and everyone is in debt and was counting on the existing financing, it would basically bankrupt all the parties except the Conservatives. Apparently financially strangling the opposition parties is part of Tom Flanagan (Harper’s guru)'s master plan, or at least so some media are reporting.
In any case, it was kind of dense of Flaherty to expect the Liberals to roll over on this (despite the 43 cases of precedent from the last parliament), given that it’s become do or die for the opposition.
I think either Harper will withdraw or soften the measure, or else Michaëlle Jean will pull a King/Byng and we’ll go into a Liberal/NDP coalition. It’s so soon after the last election that this is constitutionally feasible. And if it happens, it might last for a while, considering that the Bloc will find it much more palatable to prop up a red/orange government long enough to lick its wounds than a Tory one, assuming the Liberals don’t do anything stupid.
Probably soften it until at least one party agrees to at least not send enough MPs to defeat the measure. I don’t see another election coming up, and a coalition government is completely unlikely.
So if something actually happens will there be another King/Byng (with the acceptance of the Speech from the Throne counting as Parliamentary business) or will the Conservatives have the wit to get out of the way and thank their lucky stars that “Harper hovels” don’t take their place in history beside “Bennett buggies”?
I’ve just sent this email to Dion, and mutatis mutandis Layton:
This is the time to defeat the government and replace it with a coalition/national unity government. I don’t care if that coalition is led by you, Bob Rae, Ignatieff, Layton or even Duceppe (the ironies there might even make for a salable spin). Harper and Flaherty have demonstrated that they are not up to dealing with the current crisis. Without action on their part – or action on your part – Harper Hovel will go into Canada’s political lexicon beside Bennett Buggy.
Do not hesitate or let partisan considerations get in your way. Replace the government.
This is a stupid, stupid move by the Conservatives. In 2007, public financing accounted for 63 per cent of the Liberals’ funding, 86 per cent of the Bloc’s and 57 per cent of the NDP’s. The opposition cannot allow this to pass – it’d bankrupt all of them. The best measure of how idiotic this is: the Liberals and NDP are in serious discussion to form a coalition. A week ago that would have been unthinkable.
Harper is gambling that Canadians are too stupid to realize what a blatant political ploy this is. I hope to God that he’s wrong.
The posts that followed mine are enlightening. This worries me because I do like to see the smaller parties represented–as an individual, I’ve voted both Green and NDP federally. I want other viewpoints represented.
My understanding is that the Liberals actually acted against their best interests when they changed the campaign financing rules. They were the biggest recipient of large donations, and since they changed the rules they’ve dropped from first to third(behind the Conservatives and the NDP) in fundraising.
CBC News is reporting that Jean Chrétien and Ed Broadbent are in Ottawa to broker talks on a coalition, and that the Bloc is making supportive noises, although they refuse to actually be in a coalition cabinet.
I did actually hear it mooted somewhere that Harper might be handing the opposition a poisoned chalice. It’s possible, given that the biggest news of the crisis blew up during the election rather than before. I wouldn’t put it past him.
Being who I am, of course, I’d definitely rather have a red/orange coalition in office (with as much orange as possible, please) rather than insane Reformists, so this all gives me a major happy. Then of course there’s the possibility of an election in a hurry, which would mean death by exhaustion.
While the opposition parties may all be having talks about a coalition government, this is unlikely. No one in the negotiations (especially the Liberals) wants current Liberal Party leader Dion as prime minister, and neither Duceppe (hah!) nor Layton are going to acceptable as potential prime minister to any of the Liberals. Given that the Liberals were about to go into yet another leadership slugfest, I doubt you will get great consensus there as to who should get top billing in this pseudoemergency.
I think Harper and his advisers have calculated this very carefully and expect to be able to ride out the storm over our wimpy opposition parties, no matter what posturing takes place first. At worst, the government withdraws the political party funding bit and life goes on.
The last time there was a leadership race, Martin had resigned effective immediately, so the party was led in the House by Bill Graham, and if there had been an election during that time, he would have led the Liberals into that election. There’s no reason they couldn’t choose another person, not involved in the leadership race, to serve as interim Liberal leader. It needn’t even be a sitting MP, technically.
I think you underestimate the Liberals’ position right now. If this bill passes, the Liberals are facing political annihilation, and the NDP won’t be in much better shape. Both parties were just given a very sharp lesson on the importance of money in an election campaign by both the Conservatives and Obama. They can’t roll over on this.
It’s not just for the future. All the parties went into debt to fight the election, so they could spend the limit. Under normal circumstances you pay off that debt over the next year or two. Losing several million of funding? I don’t care how grass roots you are, every party but the Conservatives will go bankrupt, and that isn’t hyperbole. There will not be able to be a multi-party system in this country.
The local [Toronto] radio news station is now reporting that Harper will not include the party funding in the confidence motion on Monday. That’s either genius or idiocy; I’m not at all sure which. On one hand, it removes some motivation to make the coalition/alliance happen. On the other hand, it almost compels the other parties to act (otherwise they’ll look like all of their rhetoric was based on economic self-interest rather than on the Conservative’s incompetence in dealing with the broader economic situation.
I hope it’s the latter. Defeat the government. Form a new one.
I don’t actually know what can be done within the current Parliamentary structure, but the Conservatives have to be stopped from making every piece of legislation a confidence motion. There is a reason that they have a minority, and honourable people with integrity would realize that the situation calls for compromise. Instead, we have thugs and schoolyard bullies demanding the right to impose their will over the parliament.
Can a private member’s bill be passed to limit the governing party’s ability to unilaterally declare a piece of legislation a matter of confidence? Can we change the Rules of Parliamentary procedure? Something needs to be done. Any suggestions, anyone?
This behaviour is exactly why I will never vote for Harper’s Conservatives - perhaps that needs to be explained to them.
In fairness to the Conservatives, this one might qualify as a money bill, which has to be a matter of confidence.
My understanding is that matters of confidence are part of the unwritten part of the Constitution. A re-definition of matters of confidence would probably have to be a Constitutional amendment. As I said in one of the pre-election threads, I would prefer if only money bills and explicit “motions of no-confidence” were matters of confidence, and that the government would have to lose a matter of confidence to see Parliament dissolved – remove the PM’s ability to “advise” the GG to do so.
I can almost guarantee that this was done on purpose. Threaten all kinds of bad stuff and then pull back on a few to make it look like they’ve decided to compromise. This happens all the time.