Coalition, coalition, coalition?

First Britain then Australia now Sweden? Who's next, Canada? Despite the Harper regimes concerted effort to scare the electorate into voting for HIMSELF by saying that any other vote may result in a coalition and, oh my god, may include those nasty NDP and Bloc MP's actually cooperating for the good of the country, it is a real possibility. At the least it would seem probable that the next election, whenever that may come, will result in a minority government. The only question is whether it will be a Conservative minority or a Liberal one. If the former then we know that no coalition will be sought, unless of course the Harper regimen finds it politically expedient to do so, and who would go into ANY kind of agreement with such an untrustworthy lot. If the latter then there are several scenarios, a simple Liberal minority government without the formal support of any other party much the same as is being done now, coalitions between Libs and NDP – with or without the Bloc support, even perhaps with newly elected Greens with the balance of power. You may be sure that the election will not be called unless either Harper or Igniff think that they can garner more than that magic 35% of votes which would result in 51% of the seats and 100% of the power but as in the above examples the actual results may well surprise them and FORCE them in to a cooperative coalition.

A word here about coalitions that include the Bloc. Despite their avowed intent to “separate” from Canada (which in my view is wrong for both them and Canada) they have disrupted parliament far less than than the currently ruling party, they have in fact done everything above board and within the democratic process. When was the last time you heard of a Bloc MP disrupting a parliamentary committee, or trading insults during question period? They at least have respect for the process which is more than can be said of the Harper regime.

I have said it before, but it bears repeating. A coalition is not a bad thing, it may in fact be a good thing, it is merely a formal agreement between a number of political partys when a minority government situation exists to COOPERATE and to not vote non-confidence and trigger another election given certain agreed conditions. This surely is how we would wish our parliament to work, cooperatively rather than the current constant confrontation and brinkmanship, it is in fact how our parliament is intended to work As Elizabeth May said in referring to the recent rant by Jim Flaherty in a speech recently to the Canadian Club in Ottawa, “here we go again. Somehow cooperation is not a threat in Sweden, UK, Australia and Ireland, or in the past Germany, France... the list is long. But in Canada, the very idea of our parliamentary democracy working as it should is held out as the big threat.”

It is indeed long past time that ALL partys and politicians started working together for the betterment of our country and the protection of our democracy. The time for partisan rants designed to divide and confuse the electorate is long past, but that will not stop it from happening, let us ignore such self serving spin and support those who would seek to work together.

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