John Miedema

The Canadian Parliament is set to make history on Monday with a confidence motion that would defeat the Conservative minority government, and potentially install Stephane Dion as Prime Minister, leading a coalition of the Liberals and the NDP, and with the signed support of the Bloc. Unlike 99.99% of the time, the Governor General is the key to what happens next. Will she let Harper “prorogue” parliament till the new year? If not, will she call an election? Holy smokes. Just when we thoughts politics in Canada had subsided to a dull rumble.

I don’t think of myself as an ideological person. I have voted Progressive Conservative, NDP, Liberal, and Green. Despite a certain affection for Preston Manning, I never voted Reform or what became the current Conservative Party. Certainly I could be accused of being biased against the Conservatives. But this turn of events took me entirely by surprise. I believe that surprise has allowed for some clarity in my evaluation of it.

My first reaction was that Stephane Dion and Jack Layton were making a power grab. I started paying attention. Harper planned to cut the subsidy to political parties based on the vote. Political outsiders will never get the problem there, but the subsidy is one small way of getting proportional representation in Canada. Next, Harper wanted to veto the right to strike for public service workers. Ugh. But Harper backed down on both those things. Not enough for Dion and Layton, who insisted that the core of the non-confidence motion was the lack of an economic stimulus package in a time of crisis. That one didn’t move me. What did move me was that Harper backed off on that too, promising to push up his budget date and provide a stimulus package. Harper back-pedaled on his entire platform. How competent is that?

Canadians are naturally frustrated. We just had an election. We voted in the Conservatives. Actually, we voted in a minority Conservative government, and, of course, a majority opposition. It is the job of the opposition to call the government to account. Americans must think this all weird too, since they don’t have politics like this. To be honest, I found myself brushing up on my Canadian history. As it turns out, Canada was founded with a coalition government. There was a coalition government to foster unity before WWI, and cooperation between parties has been associated with some of our more progressive social policies, including health care, the Canadian Pension Plan, and the Canada Student Loans program. It turns out that coalitions are a normal and often positive event in Canadian politics.

If I still thought this was a power grab, I would denounce it. I don’t think so. Dion was defeated in the election and announced he was stepping down in May; he still plans to do so. Harper, on the other hand, has never done anything progressive until he was backed into it. And after two years of Harper pushing and picking at Dion to call a confidence vote, now that he is getting one, he is using “all measures” to avoid it.

I, for one, hope the coalition succeeds. Canada started with a coalition government; let’s start it again. We’ve seen some inspiring change in the south, and we need some here. Time to reboot Canada.

Also posted at http://www.greenparty.ca/en/node/8633