Well in case you happen to live and Canada and you have missed the news, Canada’s parliament is having a time out called by the Governor General at the request of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
The situation was initiated by the opposition response to a Conservative economic update. The uproar today is that the update contained no commitment to an economic stimulus package. That in itself would not likely have caused the uprising we witnessed, rather it was another position taken by the government; one that would see the end of public funding for political parties. All parties with official party status, receive this funding but the Liberals, NDP, and Bloc Quebecois depend very heavily on this funding to run their operations and campaigns. Evidently, we Canadians like to reward the lazy! Faced with either having to work for their money, or going bankrupt, the opposition parties decided to band together against the minority government to form a replacement coalition. This coalition would led by Liberal leader Stephan Dion, the most unpopular political leader in Canada. The government response to this unexpected opposition threat was to remove the offending party funding stance and allow the opposition to keep their money. However, even though the real offense had been taken off the table, the coalition needed to press the issue. By aligning itself with the socialist NDP and the separatist Bloc, the Liberals have done something that should be perceived as unthinkable and repulsive to any federalist Canadian who would like to see this country governed with any semblance of responsibility. The newly formed coalition needed to stay together and claim it had lost confidence in the government for not offering to dump billions of dollars of economic stimulus to the Canadian economy. If the minority Conservatives were to find themselves in a position to call a snap election, it would likely result in a Conservative majority due to a voter revolt against the Liberals for forging a formal alliance with the NDP and separatist Bloc.
Now that the timeout has been called, many Liberals are looking to push their leader out the door before Christmas and try to get a new leader installed before Parliament resumes, evidently they are very nervous that their grossly unpopular leader may lead them to oblivion rather than power.
Below is the two steps that I believe that the Conservative could have taken to secure themselves as the governing party for many years to come. For all those card carrying Conservatives out there, you may be pleased that the party is not heeding my advice as it would be a rough ride for the Conservative party and likely bad for the Canadian economy.
First, I believe it was a mistake to take the public funding issue off of the table. I know that the Prime Minister was offering an olive branch and hoping that the opposition would be willing to resume working with the government but from my view, once I saw how harsh a position the opposition took on this issue I believed that they would continue on in their attempt to take control of the government. Now it will be more difficult for the Conservatives to convince Canadians that the real reason this coalition wants to take over is to preserve their party funding.
Second, assuming the first step was followed, I believe it would be a mistake to prorogue parliament. If this coalition did indeed take power it could very well cause Stephen Harper to resign as leader. The coalition may still go ahead and take power when parliament resumes in the new year! I know the Prime Minister is very popular within the Conservative party membership so this would be a blow. However, does anybody believe that Stephan Dion could successfully lead this coalition through a Liberal convention? Even if he did, very unlikely the coalition staying together long after. A coalition of Liberals and NDP, backed by separatists for the purpose of maintaining their public party funding would be incredibly unpopular and would fracture the very base of the Liberal party to an extent that it may take a decade to repair.
The above two steps would be very risky for the Conservatives to take, therefore very un-Conservative. As collateral damage of such strategy, there is a strong chance that the Conservatives would have lost their leader which would be a bitter pill for the party. However had they taken those two steps, they likely would have enabled the Liberal party to self inflict severe and long term damage by causing them to govern at a time, and under conditions where they simply cannot.
