Framing Coalition Question in Election: It's All About Steve

The odds are the Cons are going to provoke or outright call an election in the Spring. I would prefer, by far, to have House reaffirm its authority over executive by sitting and following necessary steps: censuring Govt-ministers responsible, that is Public Safety, Defence, Foreign Affairs, Attorney General (dereliction of duty) & PM (responsible for ministers & govt Conduct), finding them in contempt, throwing them out of House and confining them in local jail until agree to obey House order, and ordering Sergeant at Arms to execute parliamentary warrant for all cited materials. Of course, it would be best if Govt just reversed itself and obeyed House Order, but if they haven't yet, unlikely they will. And further unlikely they will sit by and allow House to reaffirm its supremacy in prescribed logical manner. Given the time it will take to implement these steps, the sitting would bleed into the summer (the House would need to refuse adjournment), and the Govt is simply not going to sit there and take it - it will call an election. I hope they don't, but given righteous popular & Opposition determination, they will probably calculate better to go on throne speech/budget, rather than sit around and get slagged, cited & imprisoned.

It would be better if Parliament could continue sitting because if this or any government can defy a Parliamentary Order, prorogue, and then go to the polls, then in effect they can probably evade Parliament reasserting its supremacy, and the Executive is effectively supreme. The effective two month break due to an election would dampen Parliament's vigour. And here are the real-life scenarios which will follow from an election:

1) Con majority = Affirmation of Bonapartist executive supremacy, Parliamentary inferiority, Parliamentary Order killed, death of (parliamentary) democracy - next chance to resurrect it 4-5 years hence?

2) Lib majority or plurality = Lib government, documents produced, parliamentary democracy restored to an extent, except since original outlaw executive never censured nor found in contempt, etc., Parliament never got a chance to reaffirm its authority v.-à-v. Executive. Censure might seem like pointless vengeful victors' justice, given documents production, although still right & necessary in my view, and a further complication is Harper will almost certainly resign his seat, as is likely for one or more of the other obstructionists of justice, MacKay, Day, Nicholson & Cannon.

3) Con plurality:

i) Opposition allows Cons to stay Govt, ie. maintain the confidence of the House, then they are knowingly countenancing and rewarding Con Executive Supremacy over Parliament, as Cons having refused to produce documents, and gone to election, and obtained plurality and with Opposition acquiescence, returned to Govt, they are hardly going to now obey Parliamentary Order. And the Cons, media and public will interpret Opposition acquiescence as validation for Con position, so no political momentum to enforce Order. So while technically Opposition could recommence censure-contempt etc. proceedings, in fact they could and would not. Executive supremacy & Parliamentary inferiority affirmed, even more strongly than in case of Con majority, as Opposition itself will have effectively agreed with Con position. In a Con "majority", the Cons will have won with approx 40% of vote so a majority of the population will have voted for other parties, and thus birth of noble myth of majority of Canadians voting for parliamentary democracy, only to be frustrated by electoral system, and strengthen democratic forces' position for next election, assuming we still have elections. But in Con minority govt situation, Opposition will have repudiated its own democratic principles and there will be no more argument on the matter: parliament is not supreme, executive is, and hence parliamentary democracy is dead.

ii) Opposition forms Government, enforces order.

a) The stronger the Opposition Govt (Lib+NDP>Cons) the more the consequences will resemble those in the case of a Lib majority/plurality, as the impossibility of regaining power will lead Harper et.al. to resign seats, etc..

b) The weaker the Opposition Govt - Libs+NDP less than Cons and explicitly dependent on Bloc support - the tougher the initial fight. I agreed with Chrétien's and others' judgements in this matter, well summarised by Robinson: "The very fact of having power fundamentally alters the dynamics of the political situation in favour of those who possess it.(...)Canadians might have said that they did not want a coalition, but once they had one, the situation would have changed fundamentally."

Harper & the other obstructionists might try to stay in Opposition, at first, hoping demagoguery works again, and through intimidation they would weaken the Government and cause it to splinter, thus reascending to power either through a confidence vote or another quick election, whose narrative, since a consequence of Cons intimidating Government into self-destruction and (ex-)implicit endorsement of Con critiques, would favour Cons. But if the new Government demonstrates its determination, it will win decisively, as this fight is fixed in its favour: we would be on the side of the motherhood issue of democracy as a good majority of Canadians would have voted for the parties in question, whose agenda would be democratic reform, not to say the reestablishment of (parliamentary) democracy, riding on a popular pro-democracy wave.

After two months, the Government sworn in and its legislative agenda underway, all motherhood issues, it would become clear to the Cons that there would be no instant return to power, and Harper & many of the obstructionists would resign their seats. Then the CPC would be in a long period of recriminations, and a leadership race, which would expose and heighten the hitherto repressed divisions between Reform-PC, OntGiorno-Rest, Social Conservatives-Others, etc.. As the motherhood democracy agenda moved forward and the CPC became more consumed with angry internal divisions, the Government would be in an ever strengthening position for an election some 18 months subsequent to its formation. The government parties would be that much better placed as a result of those democratic reforms, electoral reform in particular.

There would be a whole package of democratic reforms front and centre, with, among others, Parliament needing to agree to prorogations, multiparty agreement on a more liberal UK approach to voting discipline, independence of nomination to judicial, quasi-judicial & arms length bodies, reestablishing independent public service, and most crucially, electoral reform by introducing a simple preferential system. Three previous posts have summed up the essential questions, Milliken's Ruling, Precedents & Inquiry. I quote from this last post to again explain why I think simple preferential system is the only electoral reform possible:

"might I reiterate the importance of electoral reform and the fact that the only reform that could ever be acceptable to QC, given its unique position, is preferential voting, which far from penalising the Bloc, as other proposals would, might indeed aid it, a bit, as the insurance policy party in QC, in the short term, 1-2 elections, max. The change in our democratic culture as a result of preferential voting (civilised debate, hence necessarily more policy-focussed, and leading to greater respect for institutions by parties, etc.) would eventually profit smaller parties and increase desire to be part of governing coalitions, pulling folk away from Bloc. But it's fair to say that the Bloc would probably profit slightly in the first preferential election, and that's exactly why it's the only electoral reform with a chance."

That goes for any reform, under any circumstances, whatever size of governing majority, as "QC", that is nationalist QC, representing some 70% of population, would rise in revolt against any electoral change that would be perceived as a method for weakening nationalist position, ie. Bloc. Even many (most?) federalists who don't like Bloc would be leery, esp. in light of media & popular reaction. To impose an even more proportional system that would have happy consequence of diminishing Bloc influence, from federalist point of view, would seem so wrong in QC as to be one of few issues on which PQ could whip up enough support for 60%+ Yes vote in referendum, as in post-Meech. The best short summary of attitudes on this kind of issue, and English-French relations, remains Some Obstacles to Democracy in Quebec and in QC, French Canadians always remember, or continue to perceive, that "English Canadians have not really wanted it (democracy) for others", ie. Anglos' claims of needed structural reforms are really just excuses for doing down Francos (cf. single capital markets regulator, among many such examples).

The preceding analysis raises the question of how to deal with the sensitive question of a, or the, coalition. As noted in Inquiry, a coalition needing Bloc support is only necessary if the combined Lib-NDP representation is inferior to the Cons. If Lib-NDP plurality were larger than Cons', then no formal letter of support would be necessary. But obviously, there is a very real chance that Cons' might have larger plurality. Given the absolute necessity of saving (parliamentary) democracy, Opposition must take power, however that must be accomplished. Were a Bloc supported coalition prove necessary, it would be weakened from the start if framing was that Libs & NDP were contradicting stated anti-Bloc position during campaign. So how to frame question?

Answer: It's all about Steve. Harper has happily not just opened the door to this framing, but torn down the walls and ripped off the roof. By centralising everything, by making himself the centre of everything, from 2005-06 campaign onwards, by making it all about himself, to the point that before, during & after last prorogation the Con presidentialist line was that "Canadians elected Stephen Harper, not Stéphane Dion & coalition", he has opened himself to completely focussed anti-Harper framing. We know he is not a sympathetic character, even to conservatives. And great advantage of focussed anti-Harper frame is it allows us to say & intimate that most conservatives are fine fellows and we know they are as disappointed, shocked even, by Harper's mean & anti-democratic behaviour as anyone. Being focussed on Harper actually lets us be nicer to Con swing voters. You're good, he's bad, do you really want to vote for him? Harper's hoist by his presidentialist petard.

But how does this relate to coalition question? Because when asked if we Libs are contemplating a coalition, we frame it this way: "Harper must go. We're running candidates in every riding, and obviously, like every party, we'd like all our candidates to win - who hopes any of their candidates will lose? - though we know that's impossible. Like every serious national party, we're working for a majority, and failing that, as big a plurality as possible, for as strong a minority government as possible. But what is clear is Harper must go. We're hoping to accomplish that through a Liberal majority, and failing that, as strong a Liberal minority as possible, but this election is about Harper and his dictatorial tendencies. He's destroying Canadian democracy and he has to be stopped. Harper must go. Whatever it takes, he must go. So we're not hoping for a coalition, we're not planning for a coalition, but Harper absolutely has to be stopped, whatever it takes. If the numbers turn out that the only way to stop him is through some sort of agreement or coalition with other parties, so be it. Harper must go. The stronger the vote for the Liberal Party, the less we will need to make deals with other parties. Ideally, we'll win a majority. But Harper must go, and we will do whatever it takes to get rid of him. The surest way to get rid of him is to vote Liberal. Harper must go. Vote Liberal to stop Harper & start a better Canada." Short version: "Harper must go, whatever it takes."

This position is best laid out as early as possible in the campaign, before its official declaration even. By being upfront about how anti-Harper=coalition if necessary, we free ourselves to run on voting Liberal for all these other good reasons (economy, health care, environment, etc.), and remind people that the stronger the Liberal vote, the surer we can deliver, on our own.

A few months back, I said "Somewhere the a(im)moral but occasionally insightful Paul Wells wrote something along the lines that both Iggy & Harper would want to spend the next campaign talking about the other guy and not themselves". By defying Parliament, shutting down Afghan Committee and then proroguing Parliament, Harper made the next election all about himself, to an almost unheard of extent. The closest equivalents are Dief in '63, Trudeau in '79 & the ghost of Mulroney in '93. As we see with the popular revolt over the prorogation, at least 2/3 of the population is sick and tired of the jerk, and wants him gone. And by acting like Banana Republic dictator, he's placed himself in the bullseye. And as his & Cons reputation for negativity is now infamous, there's nothing they can say about any attacks. In fact, their attacks will only reinforce the fact of the prorogation behaviour. When Ron MacLean is making jokes about it on HNIC, you're in big trouble.

Harper must go. Whatever it takes, Harper must go. Repeat, repeat, repeat, when the time comes.