Apr. 27, 2011 - Issue #810: Election

Let’s make a deal

Coalition governments may be Canada's future

It was a bold statement: there will be no coalition. Michael Ignatieff declared it defensively and almost angrily during the live debates earlier this month. Whether it was a preconceived policy decision by the campaign team to be announced during the debate or a declaration riled by the one-on-one sparring, the statement was uttered with such conviction that it seemed to end the conversation about coalition governments—at least one led by an Ignatieff Liberal Party. The ferocity of the statement jarred a debate couched in rhetoric. In that moment Conservative party messaging around coalition governments had won.

"Harper wants to suggest that there's something dishonest about forming a coalition," says University of Alberta political science professor Laurie Adkin, "but there are no democratic restrictions about why they shouldn't exist." In fact, British Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron owes his job to an official coalition hammered out between two partners.

When the results of the 2010 UK election came in, it became clear no party held a majority. The balance of power rested with a third party, and unlikely Conservative ally, the Liberal Democrats. An advocate of social liberalism, progressive taxation and electoral reform, leader Nick Clegg took advantage of his position as kingmaker and attempted negotiations with natural partner Labour party leader Gordon Brown, negotiations which failed to yield majority results. Conservative leader David Cameron picked up the opportunity and combined his 307 seats in the House of Commons with Clegg's 57 to form government. As Adkin says, it was not treated as an outrageous event, it was the solution. "There's a case to be made that they're a more democratic form of representation than the first-past-the-post system," says Adkin. "They have an agreement on legislation they will bring forward with compromises on both sides. These compromises are negotiated, the advantage is that a lot of people who voted Liberal Democrat have some representation that they would not have had and the government is able to go forward with relative stability and some agenda of legislation."

The system worked out between the two parties in Britain is very similar to the 2008 Accord negotiated between the New Democrats and Liberals, with agreement from the Bloc. It was a formalized bid for a coalition with plans for cabinet ministers from both parties and a method of attack for creating new policy. If agreed to, Canadians would still be living under a coalition government: the accord's expiration was set for June of this year.

Ironically, even though the Accord was avoided through Harper's prorogation of Parliament, Canada has essentially been living under an informal coalition for the past four years. As Carole Aippersbach of the Alberta Legal Resource Centre explains in a recent web post, coalitions happen any time there is a minority government. "By definition, a minority government cannot win any vote unless it has the support of MPs from other parties. And, on any confidence vote, if there is not a majority, the government falls. That is just how the math works." It's a reminder that all governance is compromise. Adkin points to a referendum set to occur in Britain on electoral reform: proposed by the Liberal Democrats as a condition of their support, "The electoral system on the referendum is not the first preference of the Liberal Democrats, and Conservatives do not want the referendum at all, but they agreed to put forward the referendum." explains Adkin.

It's a negotiation that will not be seen in Canada. The word coalition has taken on such a negative connotation that it is comparable to usurping government, says Adkin, "[Harper has] suggested there's some sort of illicit conspiracy."

In Britain, the socialist Liberal Democrats and Conservatives have found common ground; in Canada the divide has taken on a greater presence. "I think in [Harper's] world the NDP is so far left that if the Liberals were to consider forming a coalition it indicates the Liberals are going to be corrupted or led into extremism and can't be trusted," says Adkin. She iterates that a complicating factor is the search for sovereignty by one of the coalition partners. "If a party that supports independence of Quebec is given a position of governance for the nation, [Harper suggests] it would somehow be akin to a foreign power running one's country."

That being said, as Bloc Quebecois party leader Gilles Duceppe vociferously points out, Harper was willing to engage in coalition talk with the Bloc in 2004. Britain has had to negotiate the minefield of seperatist sentiment and nationalist movements with Scottish, Welsh and Irish nationalist parties present in the House of Commons.

Some of the confusion surrounding the undemocratic nature of coalitions might reside in the prevailing sentiment of voting preference. Although the constitution mentions nothing about parties, Canadians are accustomed to voting for their preferred party, when in fact we vote for a member of parliament, and theoretically every member could be an independent that negotiates a system of voting in parliament. "Canadians do not vote for prime minister. Nor do they vote for a government," Aippersbach writes. "The Constitution Act of 1867 does not mention the prime minister or political parties—the focus is on MPs." In that sense the combinations for political coalitions are endless. "This is a problem that will be reproduced until the electoral system changes or the parties adapt their strategy to take into account the electoral realities."

With Great Britain, the home of Canada's Westminster parliamentary democracy facing a referendum on electoral change, it's a message that may have been heard by the country's political parties. A message Canada may soon be facing as well. V

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