Stéphane Dion's Liberals and Jack Layton's
NDP, with the support of Gilles
Duceppe's Bloc, are proposing to vote out Mr. Harper's Conservatives and form the new government. Is it a coup? Is it democracy? What will the
GG say?
The fact accords with the constitutional reality - Prime Minister Harper has lost the confidence of the house. He will almost certainly lose the next confidence motion. A closer examination of how that happened will help us understand the best response.
First, we have the explanation of the coalition: he has failed to respond to the financial crisis. This is true, with
Pollyannaish estimates of the economy's performance, promised substantial savings from cuts to they-know-not-what, and Mr.
Flaherty's unwise and premature musings on a hasty sale of assets.
Second, the opposition's not-at-all veiled anger at the withdrawal of funding for political parties that was slipped in with the economic update. Mr. Harper thought the opposition would 'blink' and it would be a Merry Christmas for him. And why not? They had been blinking for a year or more.
Which is
really how we got here: Mr. Harper was able to whip the required Liberal votes by threatening them with an election and so govern without a majority but also without negotiating or compromising with the other elected members of the house. Frankly, that's undemocratic and it was bound to end. As the inevitable end approached, we had his intentional obstructions at the Committee level, a bit of a holiday, and then the election.
Our government has not done
much work in the last six months, and that is Mr. Harper's fault. He intentionally broke this House. It was his excuse for the election. He was hoping the election would 'fix' it by giving him a majority, but that didn't work. He returns to the House he broke with no idea of how to put it back together again.
So, the reason Mr. Harper does not enjoy the support of the House is because he does not deserve it:
1) We are not governed by a
majoritarianism, much liess some kind of minoritarianism: the government must negotiate in good faith with the other members of the
House, who are all duly elected democratic representatives of their
constituents. Mr Harper fails to play well with others, as is his duty.
2) He laid out additional confidence motions to ensure the passage of legislation that the House would not otherwise support, and to weaken his opposition further. These are both partisan aims and show that he will place partisan advantage above the proper functioning of
government, the well-being of Canadians, and the respect in which those Canadians hold our democracy and it's officials.
3) He will obstruct the work of government to prolong its life and then force an election, not on any substantive issue but simply because it was an opportunity to seek a majority. Again, this places partisan interests above the interests of the nation and its citizens.
4) He has been given the chance to learn from these mistakes and has failed to do so, returning to the House he broke with the same strategies that caused its collapse.
His failure to respond to the economic crisis is, frankly, window dressing, and the removal of funding is simply the example of how he failed to learn from his mistakes and adapt to a minority house (he's had almost two years!). He will
almost certainly compound these by asking for the House to be
prorogued (a stay in which he would hope to out spend and out PM the opposition) or for an election. Again, either response shows he is placing the continued power of
his government over the proper functioning of
our government, the Parliament of Canada.
Whatever the
GG does, it's about time these guys got to work. And that means a PM who can command the support of the house on a confidence motion. Right now, there is only one of those on the table, and that is the best of the alternatives. Long live Dion, and short may he reign.
