“A Political Blizzard” or “What the Heck are Those Crazy Canucks Doing up There?!”

Now that the American election is over, there has certainly been a dearth of juicy political happenings this side of the 49th. So if you are looking for some interesting political maneuvering,  I direct your attention to America’s northern neighbor, where Canada’s usually dull political scene is shaking up.

First, a little background for those who are not familiar with Canadian politics:

Canada has a parliamentary system.  This means that voters choose a member of parliament (MP) to represent their district in parliament.  The party that has the most seats in parliament becomes the ruling party, and its leader becomes the prime minister.  If the ruling party has over 50% of the seats, it is said to be a majority government – it can get its bills passed easily because it represent most of the parliament’s votes.  If the ruling party has less than 50% of the seats, it forms a minority government.  In a minority government, if any of the ruling party’s proposals get defeated, an election is immediately called by the Governor General (the GG is the Queen’s appointed representative, and is the official head of state in Canada, although her duties are largely ceremonial).

The Prime Minister can also ask the Governor General to call an election at any time.  This year’s election was called by Prime Minister Stephen Harper because he thought his party (the Conservatives) had enough support to create a majority government.  He was wrong.  Although his party won the election, they could only form a minority government.  This is where things get interesting…

Last week, Stephen Harper proposed his financial plan to guide the country through this global crisis.  But in his plan, he also took the opportunity to throw in some very unpopular extras.  The biggest of which was a provision that cuts all government funding for political parties – an act that would have essentially bankrupted every party except his own.  Now, the other three parties took exception to this potentially devastating provision and formed a coalition to defeat the bill.  Normally, this would simply cause the Governor General to call a new election (the second in three months!), but things got a little more complicated this time around.

In an unprecedented move, the three opposition parties have worked out a deal in which they would form a “coalition government,” instead of sending the country back to the polls.  A Coalition Government?  Even if it is constitutional to set up a new government from an existing parliament (scholars are split on the issue), there hasn’t been a coalition government in Canada for over 91 years, and I’m not surprised – getting Canada’s parties to agree on things is difficult during the best of times, what will happen when they have to share executive power?  According the plan, this coalition government would appoint Liberal Leader Stephane Dion as Prime Minister, and appoint cabinet ministers from both the Liberal and the NDP Parties.  The biggest problem with this is that Stephane Dion completely botched this fall’s election, and is extremely unpopular.  The Liberal Party is planning on electing a new leader at their convention in May, and is in the middle of a heated leadership race.  Presumably, the new Liberal leader would take over as Prime Minister next May.  

What a crazy mess Ottawa has gotten itself into!  Is Canada going to have another election three months after its last?  Will there really be a coalition government?  Even if you like the Liberal Party, you have to be concerned that the coalition government will be beholding to the “separatists and the socialists.”  And do we really want Stephane Dion leading our country during these difficult financial times – a man who has shown himself to be a quite ineffectual leader?  The only thing I can say for sure is that Stephen Harper was some kind of stupid for using the financial crisis to further his own political interests in such a blatant manner – and when he’s got a minority government to boot!

I’m really interested to see how this shakes out.  I think that maybe there should be another election – see what the people thinks about Harper’s antics.  Or else maybe try and work out a compromise solution until the Liberals can get their whole leadership situation cleared up.  But who knows – now that the opposition parties have caught a glimpse of power, they seem determined to take it all the way to the end-zone.   Stay tuned and I’ll try and keep you all updated.