Wired Cola

Zeroth, I hardly ever post political content here. I don't think I have a lot of original or clever thoughts on the matter. I'm a pretty mainline right-wing kook, and I adhere to most of the standard right-wing kook principles. Kook kook ka-chook. So you know, yay Conservatives, and the Liberals and NDP are in league with Satan.

Nonetheless, my adherence to conservative principles is not necessarily an endorsement of Conservative tactics. It's the difference between wanting the Allies to win the war and believing Operation Jubilee was a good idea.

First, having got that out of the way, I thought it worth noting my thoughts on recent events. You have done the assigned reading, right? So you know what the Byng-King Thing is?

Second, what happened? As best as I can lay out the timeline, the Tories made the tactically unsound decision to attempt to revise the federal funding of political parties. Whether this was, in principle, a good idea is an open question, but its short-term effect would have been to cripple the funding of almost every party except the Conservatives, as they are the only ones with no debt and a reasonable grassroots-donor network. I think the theory was these parties would neither force a new election, or would find defending their need for public funding to politically hazardous. Right on the first idea, very wrong on the second.

The opposition parties reasonably balked, and the Conservatives backed off, which is what they're supposed to do when trying to run a minority government and their confidence bill is not going to pass.

Whether the funding fiasco was the impetus or the excuse, it got Stéphane Dion and Jack Layton together to declare their contingent love for each other, with M. Duceppe as the silent(?) partner in this relationship. In a minority government, this is a totally legit move, albeit perhaps one based more on desperation than any more coherent principle. So what, it might work regardless.

Now, whither the G-G? Her Excellency, as best as I can tell, has a simple job: to ensure that Parliament can and does work. In practice, this means she is responsible for granting elections when necessary, and for offering the Prime Ministership to the MP who can make the most reasonable case for the confidence of Parliament. In dire circumstances, the Governor General may need to decide a few things.

So here is a combination of what I think will happen, and what I think the Governor General should happen, since I think they're the same thing: Confronted with the coalition's representation of a majority of the House and its explicit willingness to make a go of it, she will let them have a shot at forming government.

What I don't know is whether this will happen before or after the Tories lose a confidence vote in the House. I think there's some reason to wait until a confidence vote actually fails, as it sets the good precedent of demonstrating a loss of confidence before assuming it. On the other hand, the on-again off-again nature of Parliament being what it is, this may delay the changing of the drapes at 21 Sussex until the New Year, and I don't really know the constitutional precedents for such a situation, if any.

As for how long this coalition will last, and how popular it will be, I think le Bloc holds all the cards, and my suspicion is that the border between Dion looking tough on separatists and Duceppe looking tough on Canada is so thin that they may not be able to split the difference to the pleasure of their respective supporters. In other words, I think the compromises they will have to make to govern are incompatible with some mix of their philosophical principles and what each party should do to gain popular support.

Also, and this is purely a personal feeling, I'll be pretty mad if Canadians don't punish the Liberals and NDP for throwing in with separatists. I don't think a separatist party is an illegitimate mode of political expression, but I think inviting them to be a vital part of a governing coalition is somewhere between stupid and evil.

Further Reading:
Colby Cosh on the tactically inept "Rally for Canada"
And earlier, Colby Cosh makes popcorn in anticipation of the political show that the Triple Entente will be
The Unionists of WWI, the last federal coalition.

Update: as usual, I was mostly wrong in my guesses.