Every time the opposition talks about a coalition...

...a Tory wets his pants. Given that, I'm guessing the latest stories about a merger between the Liberals and the New Democrats must have had the backers of the Stephen Harper Party of Canada bricking in their Stanfields this week.
Polling shows support for the idea of some kind of cooperation between the two parties and I don't doubt that it is a possibility that the two parties could merger, despite the various protestations and gnashing of teeth from the old lefties still in the NDP and the business-friendly right wing of the Liberals. After all, everyone said a merger of the Progressive Conservatives and the Reform/Alliance parties would never happen either.
Whether the Liberal Democrats would be a good idea or not bears some thinking about.
While old school lefties in the NDP and labour stalwarts might hate the idea of getting into bed with "The Establishment", especially a party that is likely to led by Bob Rae -- who they still bear a grudge against for "Rae Days"-- and consider the whole merger idea a sell-out of the party's ideals, I think those people are in the minority in the NDP these days, though they still make up a significant segment of the party's support. There are a lot of pissed-off pragmatic progressives out there fighting the agenda of the current government who don't really give a rat's ass which party banner they line up behind, just so long as it leads them to battle, achieves a change of regime and rights (or more accurately "lefts") the ship of state, takes us off the express track to Rightist Corporatist GOP/Teabagger-style Americanization and, if at all possible, makes Stephen Harper cry in public and boots John Baird in the plums for good measure.
On the other end of the equation, the business/conservative wing of the Liberal party may flee for the Tories, which, to be honest, is where many of them came from in first place, back when Brian Mulroney became the most unpopular man in the country and left Kim Campbell holding the electoral bag. They were fiscally conservative and, to a degree socially conservative too, but being from Ontario and Quebec they weren't about to throw their lot in with the Alberta separatists in the Reform Party so they migrated to the Liberals under Jean Chretien and Paul Martin. Both the influx of Red Tories and the combined leadership of those two men dragged the Liberals far to the right of where it was in the days of Pierre Trudeau and Mike Pearson. At the same time, the pendulum swing to the right during the Thatcher-Reagan-Mulroney years had also dragged the Overton window further right and what was "centerist" in the '60s and '70s was considered "left of center" by the end of the '80s, "liberal" by the mid-90's and is currently referred to as "godless anarcho-socialist islamofascism" by teabaggers and blogging tories today. In the last 30 years the pivot of the political pendulum has moved steadily to the right and the Liberal Party of Canada has moved with it. Merging with the NDP will definitely drive some people away from the party and into the arms of the Harper Conservatives.
However, what a merger would do is drag the center of Canadian politics back to the left - maybe not back to where it was in the '60s and '70s, but at least it would stop the steady march toward the right and maybe by providing us with a more liberal Liberal Party and a group of New Democrats actually in power, drag the Overton Window a smidgen back toward where it used to be, back when the NDP wanted to nationalize the banks and before "liberal" became a epithet in public discourse.
Those NDPers prepared to jump ship to maintain their ideological and ethical purity rather than sell out to the corrupt, power-hungry Liberals, would likely flee to the Greens, finally providing the Green Party with the numbers it needs to put some people in the House of Commons and become a real force in Canadian politics rather than being seen as a bunch of well-meaning hippie environmentalists who are unelectable. Those Liberals fleeing the merged parties out of a distaste for dealing with those union-loving pinko welfare bum radicals from the NDP, will hold their nose and rejoin the Conservative Party of Canada, probably pulling that party back from the brink of becoming the GOP North. If enough of them change sides to keep the Conservatives in power, there will once again be a sufficient number of Red Tories to deny the  crazies their red meat, and since Konservative Krazies  gotta eat, it might even be enough to drive them out of the Conservative party and back into the Reform/Alliance/Bund party wilderness.
These would all be good things.
The likely result then, would be a Liberal Democrat government with either a narrow majority based on the combined Liberal-NDP vote in Ontario and BC,  or a the Conservative hang on to more seats in Ontario, a minority government in which they hold 40% of the seats with the Bloc and Conservatives neck and neck in the race to form the official opposition and a respectable Green Party presence in the House of Commons.
In other words, win-win.
Now, having said all that, I think it is far more likely for the Liberals and the New Democrats to put any merger plans on the back burner due to possible internal and conservative-driven media backlash and instead work toward the idea of a coalition that would announce its intention to form a government following the next election if the Conservatives fail to win a majority. The coalition could effectively cooperate on a national basis to get behind the most like candidate to succeed - "putting partisan and ideological differences aside for the good of the country in this time of terrible crisis brought on by the current Stephen Harper government's mishandling of so many grave issues of importance to all Canadians."
The Conservatives would scream bloody murder, look like a bunch of crybabies and either hand the Liberals a straight-up majority, or, assuming some bait-cutting and horse-trading can be done in good faith by the Liberals and NDP, a solid 65% of the House of Commons and most of the seats outside of Quebec and Alberta.
If a Liberal majority ensues because of dealmaking on the part of the New Democrats, the NDP better have a blood oath signed by the Liberal leadership to include them in the Cabinet  -- and the Liberals better live up to it or they will be known as welshers and cynical opportunists, considered even bigger liars than the Conservatives and never get another left-of-center vote for the next 20 years. Which some in the Liberal Party might consider a valid trade-off for five years of an unfettered majority, but most of them would be the ones most likely to jump to the Conservatives in the first place. I doubt very much that such a betrayal could be spun to the satisfaction of the public. More likely is that even in the event of winning a slim majority, the Liberals would have to dance with them that brung them and, depending on the polls, call a snap election within a couple of years with no coalition deal or carry on and merge with an eye to maintaining power and regaining the mantle of the "natural governing party" under the Liberal Democrat banner.
Now, where is my Warren Kinsella-sized strategic consulting cheque?

crossposted from the Woodshed

R.I.P. Coalition

Quelle surprise!

The liberal leader ignatieff caves to harper and puts stevie's nail gun to The Coalition, per 24 Hours.



It appears his plan is to let stevie wallow through the next couple of years and take the blame for the crappy economic situation. After he garners strength and name recognition he can "ride to the rescue" of Canada.

Never mind that he is obviously putting political positioning above the welfare of the Canadian people.

A pox on all their houses . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Dear Canadian Media : Last call for slagging the coalition

... before parliament returns from its 53 day hiatus - after sitting for only 12 days following Steve's October surprise election - due to what the NYTimes headline referred to as :
"Canadian leader shuts Parliament in bid to keep power"

and generally being on hols/in election mode since June last year.
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How's that coalition slagging going, by the way? Just give me the last couple of days worth :

Calgary Herald : Coalition power play no longer makes sense to grits

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NaPo : The coalition is dead.

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Gazette : Gilles Duceppe might be sorry he backed coalition

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Guelph Mercury : Ignatieff should denounce coalition

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NaPo again : Time to put coalition corpse to rest

AP : Coalition forces kill 15 shepherds
Oh, sorry, scratch that last one. Wrong coalition - that one's our coalition in Afghanistan

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First prize, for the best gratuitous reference to Obama in the cause of slagging the coalition, goes to Don Martin in NaPo :

"President Barack Obama is right. It's time to set aside childish things.
Specifically for Canada, that means an end to that coalition..."

NaPo also snags second prize for "The opposition does not care about Canada" , a compendium of reader's comments - half of which blame the media for promoting the coaliton!
And so it goes ...

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With thanks to April Reign for the coalition logo

Cross-posted at Creekside

Steve's CTV Christmas Special

I tuned in ten minutes late for Steve's hour long CTV Christmas Special , just in time to catch him messaging his redneck firewall base with a little Bloc bashing :

"There's no justification for trying to suggest that Canadians would put into power a coalition where the Bloc Quebecois would have a veto over the affairs of the country."
"Having the Bloc Quebecois have a veto over the decisions of a national government would be very dangerous for the long run interests of the country."
"Government cannot function if it is always looking over its shoulder to see if the Bloc Quebecois will veto."
"Canadians did not vote for the Bloc to have a veto over the government."

Dear Steve :
Allow me to quote from the Coalition's Accord, signed by the three opposition party leaders including Gilles Duceppe on Dec 1:

"The [Coalition] Government will not request a dissolution of Parliament during the term of this agreement, except following defeat on an explicitly-framed motion of nonconfidence presented by the Opposition ...[that would be you, Steve]... or any vote pertaining to the speech from the throne; or on a budget vote at on any stage in the House; or on any bill to implement a budget at any stage in the House; or on any motion in the House to concur in, restore or reinstate any Estimates; or on any supply bill at any stage in the House.

The Bloc Québécois will neither move nor will it support any motions of nonconfidence in the Government during the term of its support for this agreement, and will vote in favour of the Government’s position with respect to all matters referred to in the immediately preceding paragraph."

Could that be any clearer? The agreement actually binds the Bloc to vote with the coalition on all matters of confidence and to support all budgets, throne speeches and money bills.

Steve knows this of course, but he went on Corporate Television Vehicle™ and bullshitted the Canadian public about it four distinct times in five minutes anyway. Fucking appalling. And neither of the two hosts, Lloyd Robertson nor Robert Fife, called him on it.

Cross-posted at Creekside

Rumours of the coalition

From Iggy’s debut speech as the Liberal leader yesterday :

"I am prepared to vote non-confidence in this government. And I am prepared to enter into a coalition government with our partners if that is what the Governor-General asks me to do. But I also made it clear to the caucus this morning that no party can have the confidence of the country if it decides to vote now against a budget it hasn't even read."

Kady live-blogging the same event :

"This is kind of interesting - we the media don’t seem to know what to make of this. It’s going to be tough to spin this into another “coalition is dead” story, but I bet we’ll manage to do it somehow. We’re professionals."

Heh. Good one, Kady. Shouldn't be too difficult really.
AsperNation, aka CanWest Global, owns most of our nation's papers and many radio and TV stations.
David Asper endorsed and campaigned for Harper during the 2006 election.
Derek Burney, chairman of CanWest, was Mulroney's chief of staff and head of Harper's transition team to power.

David Asper, chair of the National Post, from The Georgia Straight's review of Peter C. Newman's new book "Izzy: The Passionate Life and Turbulent Times of Izzy Asper, Canada’s Media Mogul" referring to their journalists:

"We own the papers. We have the right to have the papers print whatever the hell
we want them to say. And if people don’t like it, they can go to hell. They can
leave, get another job."

And what papers does AsperNation, aka CanWest Global own again? A partial list :
National Post
Calgary Herald
Edmonton Journal
The Gazette
Regina Leader-Post
Ottawa Citizen
The StarPhoenix
Times-Colonist
Windsor Star
Vancouver Sun
Vancouver Province
The Courier
The North Shore News
Canada.com

Where are you getting your news from?

Do I like Iggy? No, not much. Is he capable of outflanking Harper? Yes. Do I think he would dump the coalition in a heartbeat if he didn't need it? Yup. Is the coalition still viable? Yes. Will it be accompanied by ponies and rainbows? Nope.

This coalition idea is going to take time to appeal to a public whose understanding of our governing processes is gleaned from American TV shows and a corporate media not afraid to describe it as "treason", "junta", "separatist coalition", and "deal with the devil".
So don't be sending your rainbow ponies off into battle and then mourning their imaginary deaths.
Write a letter to your MP, sign a petition, call an openline show, talk to your neighbours.
Fight back. This is your coalition - not Iggy's and certainly not the Aspers'.
Fight for it.

Thwap's Schoolyard : What part of "majority rule" do you not get?

Expanded from Creekside

A coronation if necessary but not necessarily a coronation

The puffin is a noble bird
He buries his own crap
But also Rae, Stephane Dion
And the coalition chaps.

No more a fan of torture
Or adventures in Iraq
He's been crowned by the Librulz
Just to fend off Gilles and Jack.

The rest of us are worried
What's hidden up his sleeve
But all will be forgiven
If he also buries Steve.

RepubliCon shenanigans

In his post "Conservative coup d'état?", Dr. Dawg relates that Gerry Chipeur, "the Alberta lawyer who drafted a power-sharing proposal between Stockwell Day, Gilles Duceppe and Joe Clark in 2000 is now suggesting that the Conservatives should defy the Governor-General if she were to ask the Liberal-NDP coalition to form a new government if the Conservative administration falls on January 27.

"CanWest : "Chipeur's argument foreshadows a possibly drastic response from the Conservatives should they be turfed from power. He suggests that Conservatives may not readily accept the governor-general's decision should she refuse the prime minister's request for an election."

Just five days ago we heard this same dismissal of the Governor General from John Baird in an interview with Don Newman when he said - twice! - "We're going over the heads of the politicians and the governor general directly to the Canadian people."

Several commenters have taken Dawg to task for either fear-mongering or taking Chipeur too seriously but so-con Chipeur has a history of laying groundwork for the Cons through his Republican contacts, some of which follows :

New York Observer : (additional bracketed info - mine)

"From: Paul Weyrich[co-founder of the Moral Majority and the Heritage Foundation]

Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2006 9:38 AM
To: Bob Thompson[a staffer at Weyrich’s Free Congress Foundation]
Subject: Message from Canada
Importance: High

Please get this message to the Stanton, Family Forum and Wednesday lunch groups:I received a call last night from Gerald Chipeur, an important figure in Canada’s Conservative Party. He told me that Conservatives are with-in striking distance of electing an outright majority in Parliamentary elections Monday.

He said the Canadian media, which is trying to save the current Liberal government, has a strategy of calling conservatives in the USA in the hopes that someone will inadvertently say something that can be hung around the Conservatives.

Canadian voters have been led to believe that American conservatives are scary and if the Conservative party can be linked with us, they perhaps can diminish a Conservative victory. Chipeur asks that if Canadian media calls, please do not be interviewed until Monday evening at which point hopefully there will be reason to celebrate.

Many thanks."

When contacted by Canadian Press about the email, Weyrich denied any personal involvement but later on his website, he bragged about his "small victory" in the Canadian elections.

This August, Chipeur, past Alberta chair of Republicans Abroad, teamed up with the American Chamber of Commerce to hold a $1000-a-plate fund-raising campaign for John McCain for the 80,000 Americans who live and work in Calgary.

Canadian citizens' proceeds went to Friends of Science, Tim Ball's oil industry-funded anti-Kyoto "charity", whose funding was laundered through the University of Calgary by Harper's buddy, Prof. Barry Cooper, before the U of C put a stop to it.

When Friends of Science ran ads which attacked the previous Liberal government's support for the Kyoto Protocol, pledging "to have a major impact on the next election," Chipeur acted as their lawyer in the ensuing investigation by Elections Canada.


Chipeur is also credited with introducing Republican Frank Sensenbrenner to Canadian embassy officials at the Republican National Convention in New York in 2004, attended by Stockwell Day, Chipeur's choice for coalition PM in 2000. Sensenbrenner had previously attended Reform Party conventions and Stockwell Day insisted he be hired by the Canadian Embassy over their objections.
Sensenbrenner was subsequently accused of the Naftagate leak. which sought to damage Barack Obama's credibility during the Democratic primaries, but an internal investigation by Harper's deputy minister failed to provide any evidence.

The Star : "In failing to plumb the leak, the report effectively protects the ruling party from awkward questions. With an election not far in the future, voters might reasonably ask if Conservatives put this country's seminal relationship [with Obama] at risk to give Republicans a helping hand."


One might also reasonably ask if the Cons' continuing ties to the Republican Party through Gerald Chipeur put the rest of us at risk.


Cross-posted, more or less, at Creekside

Supporting the Coalition for Change

Good going, you guys.

A couple of years ago I was listening to a member of a Mexican opposition party talk about his experience of being part of forming a left to centre-left coalition. It took 20 years, he said.

Various leaders had agreed to present a united front on the issues they needed each other's support for - while still maintaining each party's independence. A good idea but it didn't take.

He explained it wasn't until enough of their grassroots supporters became involved in both debating their differences and defending the coalition at the same time that it really began to work.

I hope we're up to it. Thank you for making this start.

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April Reign made a great "Supporting the Coalition for Change" button on a transparent background which you can find on the sidebar at Creekside. Here's the code if you would like to display it too - just enclose it in brackets < >

img src="http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o184/bloggingchange/coalitionbutton.png" alt="Support the Coalition" border="0" /

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April's design is based on the original Coalition Bloggers badge which you can download here, for those who would prefer not to include party logos.

Cross-posted at Creekside

Dear ReformaTory talk show shlocktroops

and "every tool" in Guy Giorno's toolbox, aka "All Conservative Members of Parliament" :

If it was ok for Harper, Layton, and Duceppe to jointly write to the GG in Sept 2004 to :

"respectfully point out that the opposition parties, who together constitute a majority in the House, have been in close consultation. We believe that, should a request for dissolution arise this should give you cause, as constitutional practice has determined, to consult the opposition leaders"

then why are you now all huffy about "backroom deals", referring to the possibility of "a coalition you didn't vote for" as a "coup"?

Did Layton only become a "socialist" and Duceppe a "seperatist", as most of you seem to prefer to spell it, some time after 2004?

Also, in your comments at NaPo and CBC, where Layton has now become a full-fledged "communist", your outrage that the Bloc is "only out to destroy Canada by separating" would gain considerable credibility if you didn't respond to this perceived threat to Canadian unity with a threat of your own to resuscitate the Western Separation movement.

Just sayin' ...

Cross-posted at Creekside

We, the undersigned citizens from C.R.A.P.,

have received our talking points from Con Party headquarters :

• On October 14, Canadians gave our Conservative government a fresh mandate ...
• the Opposition parties are interested only in power and entitlements ...
• They want to replace the elected government with a backroom deal ...
• Liberals want to seize power with only an endorsement from only the socialists and the separatists.

And via Elizabeth Thompson at The Gazette : a handy C.R.A.P. list of outraged opinions listed in bullet points plus the phone numbers of appropriate talk radio call-in shows.

Ye gods, I can hear them blowing their brains out in crayon on national radio from here.

Update from the PMO : "Use every tool at your disposal". Heh.
Same talking points for you, "All Conservative Members of Parliament" from Guy Giorno, Chief of Staff.
Cross-posted at Creekside

We, the undersigned citizens of Canada,

1. Recognize that the NDP, Liberals, Bloc Quebecois, and Greens have enough in common to form a coalition government that will better reflect the values of the majority of Canadian voters than the Conservative minority government.
2. Call on the NDP, Liberals, and Bloc Quebecois to ask Governor General Michaëlle Jean to form a coalition government.
3. Call on the NDP, Liberals, and Bloc Quebecois to govern by working together on areas of common interest and by including counsel from the Greens.

[Your signature here]

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Canadians for a Progressive Coalition on YouTube
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Thanks, Steve! from Cathie - a nice round-up of blog reactions

Non-Confidence Motion and Coalition Proposal

CP : "The Liberal motion, which has the approval of the NDP and Bloc Quebecois, reads:

"In light of the government's failure to recognize the seriousness of Canada's economic situation and its failure in particular to present any credible plan to stimulate the Canadian economy and to help workers and businesses in hard-pressed sectors such as manufacturing, the automotive industry and forestry, this House has lost confidence in this government and is of the opinion that a viable alternative government can be formed within the present House of Commons."

A source says the opposition parties have agreed that Liberal Leader Stephane Dion would lead the government for the next few months.

A combative Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Friday the government won't back down on a single measure, despite the opposition threats.
"We're staying on track," Flaherty said in Toronto.
"This is the financial plan of the government of Canada. This is a matter of confidence."


My god, Jim, I think you've finally got it!
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CPAC Live for interviews in the foyer...
Ok, everybody get that?
Steve says the opposition wants to install Dion and a coalition government using the support of a party that wants to destroy Canada when he got the mandate. He got it, I tell you, with his 32% of the vote.
Bottom line - To avoid the non-con vote, he's postponing ways and means and opposition day till Dec 8.