Backseat Blogger v2.0

Blogs and newspapers have been filled these last few days with articles and opinions about the aborted coalition that nearly took power in Ottawa a year ago.

As usual the discussion breaks out along party lines with the Grits and Dippers lamenting the chance to defeat  WLM Harper and excoriating him and, occasionally his “toady” the Governor General.

Tories, of course, had a fundamentally different position and talked darkly about ‘coups’ and ‘hijacking’ of parliament etc.

The truth lies somewhere in the middle.

 

Only politicians existing in the isolating parliament “bubble” that makes up official Ottawa could have dreamt up the coalition.

First and foremost the PM triggered the crisis by trying to close off the spigot of government funding of political parties.  Remember who benefits from this.  The Bloc is almost exclusively dependent of the largesse of the federal government,  the Liberals would have gone bankrupt and even the NDP would have been in financial difficulty had the Tories been successful.  The threat, therefore, to the oppposition parties was immediate and stark.  They had to defeat the government or go bankrupt.   As the saying goes nothing concentrates the mind more than the sight of the gallows.

Thus the idea of the coalition was formed.  In parliamentary terms coalitions are perfectly acceptable.  Indeed what else are political parties than coalitions of interests?  in ignorance of how our system of government works, many people think that when they vote they are voting for a government.  Not true.  They vote for a person who becomes a member of Parliament. Period.  What that person does between elections is totally up to him.  One of things the MP does is decide who he’s going to be Prime Minister. That’s because the only thing that matters in our system of government is who commands the confidence of parliament.  That person becomes the prime minister.  If he loses the confidence of parliament and another person gains it then he becomes prime minister.  Provided that Parliament’s term has not expired, there is absolutely no need for an election.

Of course, with the overlay of political parties, who has the confidence of parliament is usually pretty clear but sometimes it isn’t.  Elections are held and hopefully(usually) who has Parliament’s confidence is made clear.

A coalition or whatever you want to call it is a perfectly legitimate parliamentary tactic.

However, living in official Ottawa as they do, what the coalition partisans forgot was that Parliament only rules with the consent of the people. 

In the situation in the federal parliament a year ago an election had just been held.  The governing party was returned within an increased plurality, albiet still in a minority position.  This was the second election in which the governing party had prevailed.  The will of the people was clear.  For the second time they had returned the Tories and shown that they had no faith in the ability of the Liberals to govern.

Thus when the coalition was unveiled it could have indeed commanded the confidence of Parliament.  The ultimate arbiters of these things, the people, however, had a different idea and rejected the idea forthwith. 

The governor general would have been perfectly within the right to call on the  Liberal party leader to form a government.  However, given that an election in which the Tories had increased their pluralityhad just been held and  given that constitutional convention required that she accept the advice of her prime minister until it is proven in a vote of confidence that he does not command the House,  the Governor General was right to do as she did and grant her PM’s request ot prorogue Parliament.  Her decision was vindicated because  her PM did indeed win the next vote of confidence.

And thus this great country of ours continues to be blessed  with the governance of the Tory party.