A Coalition Government?

In case you haven't been paying attention to Canadian politics lately, here's a quick easy-to-understand recap for you:

Roughly six weeks ago we had an election with the lowest turnout ever which resulted in yet another minority government. Canadians didn't want another election, and Harper himself said that he wouldn't call another election, but he changed his mind because he thought that he could win a majority. He was wrong and Canadians delivered roughly the same verdict we had for the last three elections: a minority.

True to form, Harper has continued to run his minority as if it were a majority, repeatedly holding the "do what I want or I'll send us into another election" threat over the heads of the Commons. In his latest move however, Harper appears to have crossed the line. Here we are in the midst of an economic crisis and he's still focused on destroying the opposition when he should be trying to fix the country.

On Friday the Conservatives attempted to pass a bill that would kill public funding for political parties ($1.95 is given to each party for every vote they receive in each election). This funding is important for the Greens, NDP, Bloc and Liberals, but since the Conservatives receive the most private funding, they're happy to see it go.

The other part of the bill was an announcement that Canada was doing just fine, and would actually scrape by next year with a surplus. This was accomplished by way of some creative accounting and the selling off of Canadian assets. There would also be no investment in infrastructure or any stimulus package (money given in the form of tax breaks and grants to individuals and corporations to reduce the need for job cuts etc). Oh, and they also want to ban strikes for public unions until 2011, cancelling all collective agreements.

These together were enough to piss off the opposition for the last time. Tired of being dictated to by the minority of the House, the Liberals and NDP are talking coalition which would mean that Harper would lose his job as Prime Minister and a Dion would take his place, the leader of a mix of representatives from the Liberals and NDP. The Bloc, a predominantly left-leaning and progressive party would support them, but would not be part of the coalition.

Harper's response to this has been to tell the Opposition that they can't speak in the house until next week.

For my part, I find myself somewhat torn. For the most part I agree with the Conservative assessment of the economy. Writing up a stimulus package while we don't know what Obama has planned for his country is pretty pointless. On the other hand, Harper has consistently shown his disdain for democracy and the Will of the People and for that I want him gone. If this is the only way to do it, then I'm on board.

There's already a growing body of support around this NDP/Liberal alliance. Canadians for a Progressive Coalition have published the video seen here. I encourage you to watch it as it explains the numbers better than I ever could.

These are exciting times for Canada and its method of governance. I encourage you to keep tabs on your favourite news source to see history unfold. And for those of you hopeful for a Conservative demise, there's already a Facebook group for Stephen Harper's last day in office.