Liberals could still govern if Harper wins minority: Ignatieff
Given Ignatieff’s comments and the polls that suggest the Conservatives will get somewhere between 143- 147 seats (minority)…
What are people’s guesses for the NEXT election date?
I’m going to say 18 months, but I’m not going to guess as to whether or not we’ll have a Conservative minority or a Liberal/NDP/Bloc (non) coalition, or both.
Well, colour me confused - how can he form the next government without a coalition? Just go to the Governor General and say, “Well, I lost the election, but I really want it, so can I please have the Prime Ministership?”
Harper is defeated on the Throne Speech, or the budget: quite likely. Then Ignatieff goes to the GG and says “Let me have a try. I have a budget and speech ready to go that i know will get support from the house.”
And the GG lets him try…
The same way Harper has been governing without a coalition for the past five years?
Ah, I see. I think I had the idea that there had to be a coalition to exceed the seats that the Conservatives had won in the election (which is how PM Harper has been governing for the last five years, as far as I know - because he won the election).
In purely theoretical terms, any party that gains the confidence of the house could form the government. It’s easier when the governing party has more seats than all the other parties combined. It’s more difficult but still practical when the governing party has more seats than any other party - then the governing party has to compromise to ensure the confidence of the house. I can’t think of any precedent in the Westminster system for a second- or third-place party gaining the confidence of the house on its own to form a government. Coalitions between parties are a whole other matter, and have precedent and legitimacy. To put it bluntly, my guy said something stupid.
That being said, it’s worth pointing out that if he had wanted to be the Prime Minister of a coalition government, he had the chance in 2008.
Yup.
On the other hand, this could be him ‘preparing the battlefield’ for a backpedal on a coalition government. Get it out there now that he would be willing to form a government without a coalition if the GG would allow it, then after the election he can try, then come back and say, “the Governor General demands that we form a coalition if we want to take over. I didn’t want to do this, but I guess I really have no choice.”
Or, he could be saying this right now because the Liberals may have internal polling suggesting that one of the roadblocks against them is that no one thinks they can win, so he’s trying to let everyone know that there’s an ‘out’ for him to become Prime Minister even if the Tories win the most seats.
Personally, I WAS hoping for another Conservative minority, because it seemed like the best of all worlds - A minority government keeps their social wackiness at bay, and no one has the ability to do any kind of major activist government. And in my book, the government that governs least governs best. For the same reason, I thought having Clinton as President with Republicans controlling the House and Senate was a great result.
But I don’t want to see a left-wing coalition government, and I don’t want to see the Bloc with any more power over federal politics. Also, I think that if the Tories get almost 40% of the vote but the country winds up being led by the guy who only got 28% of the vote it will not make for a happy electorate. They’ll be fine with it in Quebec and a few other provinces, but the western provinces will be pissed off - especially if that coalition follows through on its promises to raise taxes and spending and put all kinds of impediments on the oil sands.
So now I have to hope for a Conservative majority.
This is what I’m expecting to happen. Even though the possibility of a Conservative majority is still there, albeit a very slim chance. Unless Harper eats a kitten in public or something akin to that between now and May 2nd we’re going to end up with a Conservative minority government.
Then it’s up to the GG. If he goes for it and allows the Liberals to form a government because the Conservatives have lost a confidence vote. I give it 6 months until one of the leaders (Duceppe) turns into a honey badger and tries to tear someones balls off.
Then we’re back to another election. Then all politicians would face the wraith of the Canadian electorate, which the end result would be a guaranteed Conservative majority.
Sounds loony I know, but if you haven’t been following the French media the Bloc and the PQ are going into piss off Canada as much as the can mode because that’s how bad they wan’t independence. Federal political upheaval is good for business. After all it won’t affect their paychecks one ioata.
It begs the question though, if that’s the plan from the beggining why not save tax payers 300 million dollars with a useless election ? And just go to the GG straight away to take over after the Conservatives loose a confidence motion ?
No matter how you slice it. It smells like bullshit and a slap in the face to the people that votes in the governing party.
They couldn’t go to the GG and ask to form the government because Harper advised the GG to call an election. It would violate all kinds of precedent to ask Ignatieff to take a stab at gaining the confidence of the House 2 years on. That sort of thing can really only happen in the immediate aftermath of an election.
It is certainly looking like it’s the plan to reject a Tory throne speech, although given the apparent lack of cooperation between the other parties (just look at them sniping at each other in ads) I’d have to think there’s some options out there for Harper to try to buy off Layton or Duceppe. But I’m still going to call a Tory majority within the year if Ignatieff tries to run an ad hoc minority government, and I don’t believe he’ll go with a formal coalition.
I think that if the Liberals put Canadians to the trouble of another election, only to reject the Throne speech and upset the government again, Canadians will be pretty pissed off. But memories are short - maybe he figures that even if they take a public opinion hit, if they can keep a coalition together for a couple of years they can wipe the memory of it all and regain the trust and approval of Canadians.
I believe that the Ontario Liberal government from 1985 to 1987 would qualify. There was no formal coalition agreement with the NDP at that time.
Still, as I said above it would be absolutely stupid for the Liberals to try and form a government that requires the support of two different parties. This has the feel of a trial balloon on the part of Ignatieff: if it goes over ok, he tries it. If the reaction is negative he backpedals quickly. There’s just one little hitch: if the voters react negatively to the idea it likely pushes the Conservatives into majority territory.
Peterson was extremely careful not to call it a ‘coalition’ - however, there was the NDP-Liberal accord.
From the Wiki article on Bob Rae.
So, not a coalition, but an agreement between two parties who then vote as a majority in the house, staving off any non-confidence motions. That’s still quite different from a party with 80 seats (Liberals) forming the government against another party that has 147 (Conservatives). I don’t think it would be realistic to count on the support of the 45 (BQ), 35 (NDP) and 1 independent without some sort of accord, coalition, whatever you’d want to call it. And the accusation of a broken promise about not forming a coalition would weigh heavily. (Numbers taken from today’s Threehundredeight.com)
As I said, I think my guy said something dumb, and I’m hoping this doesn’t cost us.
Just curious why we could not state that Harper — if he gets minority AGAIN - why would he not get it that it means Canadians want HIM to work with other parties and listen to their demands and include in the budget things that would make other parties okay with the budget?
Where is this expectation coming from where Harper with minority can act like he has majority, put together budget that does not pass a smell test with other parties and then point fingers saying “these guys are not playing ball”?
There was a formal written agreement. I don’t know if they called it a “coalition,” but Bob Rae signed a contract saying he’d prop up the Liberals for a minimum of two years. That’s a coalition in any sense that matters.
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Personally, I WAS hoping for another Conservative minority, because it seemed like the best of all worlds - A minority government keeps their social wackiness at bay…
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Mathematically and realistically it is impossible for the Conservatives to win a majority that would allow them to do anything socially wacky, like make abortion illegal or bring back the death penalty or baan gay marriage. If you examine the electoral map, a Conservative majority must logically come from gains in places like Ontario, down East, or Quebec. Even if they have 160 seats, they absolutely don’t have 154 votes to ban gay marriage (even when you count the few gay-hating Liberals, and yes, there are some.)
My problem with minority governments is they spend money like it’s water when they sense they’re threatened. All the parties are making the wildest spending promises. We saved a lot of money under a strong Liberal majority in part because the government was in a position to simply pass a cost-cutting budget, tell the backbenchers to vote for it or enjoy running and as independent, and laugh at the opposition.
Federal expenditures have absolutely ballooned and NOBODY is talking about cutting it. Nobody. Prior to the recession the feds were up to about $237 billion a year; now it’s over $280 billion. I don’t see any party saying “Hey, let’s pare it back to where it should be, which would be somewhere around $245 billion.” I would vote for that party almost irrespective of any other issue, because Canada has some extremely serious structural spending problems in the near future. But nobody is suggesting we do anything about it. It’s maddening; no party has a serious approach to the issue I think is the single most important issue we face.
So while I am very displeased about the Conservative’s wild-ass spending plans in many areas, at least with a majority government (Tory or Grit, but Grit’s impossible) there is a chance that government would in a couple of years do what the Chretien government did and say “Well, we’re running out of money. Let’s slash spending.” I don’t think there is any chance a minority government would do that, and a coalition would, thanks to the NDP, blow the budget through the roof.
You mean like he’s done for the last five years?
Interestingly, the CBC reports Conservatives are planning to de-fund Planned Parenthood.
That socially conservative element of the party is there. Whether it is tempered by more rational people is the question.
Well, no, not really. All the precedent in the world doesn’t change the underlying premise that the Commons is supreme, not the Prime Minister —if Ignatieff demonstrably has the confidence of the House, and Harper demonstrably does not, then Ignatieff gets to be the Prime Minister. The Governor General has the duty of referee in times of crisis — s/he is not supposed to be just the mouthpiece of whoever the Prime Minister happens to be.
Of course, the ideal situation (given that the Conservatives get another minority government) would be for Harper to show restraint and not try to defund the opposition or anything stupid like that and for the opposition to show restraint and not topple his government before it gives them a good reason to do so. FWIW, I think this is a fairly likely outcome —Harper won’t want to lose his job and Ignatieff won’t want to look sleazy, so they’ll probably just puddle along as usual.
Being pedantic, one could say it is a “coalition”, but not a “coalition government” — since all the members of government are from a single party. I’ve always assumed people mean “coalition government”, since the other option involves non-governing parties giving away most of their leeway and getting almost nothing in return. YMMV.