Mr. Prime Minister meet your mistake

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Ahhh Canadian politics.  I’m loving this.  As you know we’ve got the current situation where the Conservatives proposed a number of budget cutting measures which would essentially cut public funding of political parties (a necessity now that large corporations aren’t allowed to donate) and also would strip some rights from public sector employees.

As a result the opposition parties said they’d bring down the government over it, and, in a move of wonderful diplomacy, Harper said the equivalent of “bring it on”.  So they did.  The opposition parties got together to begin planning a coalition government.  Harper began backpedaling and removed the two most odious parts from his proposition, but they weren’t having it.  He’d made a mistake.

The best part was when Harper said that forming a coalition government was anti-democratic and anti-Canadian.  He apparently forgot that our country was founded in a minority government deadlock, and it was only because of a coalition government that we truly began.

Harper thought that by pushing through this attack early that he’d manage to cut the other parties off at the knees, and that since no one wants an election this close after the previous one the other parties (or at least the Liberals) would stand by and watch it happen.

But somehow over the past few months the Liberals developed a spine.  I think it might have something to do with having nothing to lose at this point.

The opposition parties know that they can’t keep this coalition together, they are too dissimilar, but that’s not the point.  This isn’t about forming the government, any more than the defeat of the Paul Martin Liberals was.  It is about slapping down an upstart.

The Liberals when they had a minority government behaved like they were still the majority.  Because of that they were taken down and P.M. P.M. was ousted.

If the opposition parties succeed in this coup they won’t be able to hold the government together.  They’ll get a year, maybe a year and a half.  But that’s not the point.  The point is that Harper has made a huge mistake.  And they’re going to make him pay for it.  If the Conservatives fall be prepared to see the knives come out very very quickly.  If the Conservatives fall all the blame comes down to Harper.  And in Canada that’s a political death sentence.

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Tags: Canadian Politics, coalition, conservatives, Harper