Wild About Writing

Rather than being oblivious to what’s happened in Parliament, a lot of Canadians cared enough about what’s been going in Ottawa to turn up at rallies across the country this snowy Saturday.

It’s good to see public involvement. But  no matter what happens in the political/pr wars over the next 7 weeks, the decision on who’s to govern the country is up to Parliament.

If the Opposition parties defeat Mr. Harper onhis budget, and there’s a coalition available that can win the confidence of the House, the Governor General will have the responsibility of giving it a chance to form a ministry.

Some good pieces in the media today.

Dan Tisch, my successor at Argyle Communications, writes in the Toronto Star on how the example of Barack Obama has been lost on Ottawa.

In the National Post, Craig Offman discusses the toxic psychology of Mr. Harper, and David Frum warns that the danger for the Prime Minister is not  over yet.

But perhaps the piece attracting the most attention is John Manley’s article in the Globe and Mail. He calls outright for Stephane Dion’s resignation, and urges the Liberals to get out of the coalition with the NDP.

Liberal MPs are meeting in caucus on Wednesday. Mr. Dion will face his party’s Senators the day before. After his disastrous performance in Thursday night’s TV speech, I wouldn’t be surprised if Mr. Dion is forced to  step down before Christmas.

If Mr. Dion’s resignation is almost a sure thing, how about the future of the Coalition? That’s less clear. The issue seems to be splitting the leadership candidates. Bob Rae is campaigning is in favor of the Coalition. Michael Ignatieff seems to be standing back, ready to pick up the pieces if the Liberals decide to undo Mr. Dion’s work.

As Jean Chretien used to say, “Fasten   your seat belts — it’ll be a helluva ride!!

Many Canadians will go to bed tonight deeply troubled over what has happened to our country. The promise of our land — of integrity and decency in public life, respect for differences between peoples of goodwill, and common pursuit of our social and economic well-being — has been sorely damaged by the dismal chronology of events that has unfolded over the past two weeks.

Where to begin with a rational analysis of this sad and sorry spectacle?

Prime Minister Harper has gained a six week reprieve before he must face Parliament (on January 27) with a new Throne Speech and a budget. He has promised to use the time to consult with the Opposition and devote himself totally to the preparation of a budget to guide Canada through the greatest economic crisis of the past half-century.

Anyone who believes this, is a good prospect to be sold the Lion’s Gate Bridge. Expect a furious new Tory air war, bombing the Coalition with “socialist” and “separatist” attack ad blockbusters, sowing yet more distrust between French and English, while spreading animosity between East and West.

I have been trying to find a comparison for Mr. Harper’s behavior with other past and present politicians. Not since Richard Nixon and ”Tricky Dicky’s” tapping of the phones of his enemies (like the tapping of the NPD caucus conference call), have we seen such unbridled distortion, misrepresentation, and general political immorality.

As one respondent to the Globe and Mail’s Adam Radwanski put it:

“ I read lots of criticism of Harper, but what has he done wrong, apart from,
The Cadman Affair
The in and out ad scandal (disrepect for parliamentary enquiry)
Calling an illegal election
Spending the election campaign attacking the opposition instead of presenting a party platform
Claiming legitimacy for your platform that was issued days before the ballot date
Recording and publishing the private meeting of another party,
Pitching the East against the West
Closing parliament?”

On the other hand, we are distressed and troubled by the evident inability of Stephane Dion — a fine and decent man — to present a coherent, credible alternative to a government that has lost the confidence not just of Parliament, but of a majority of Canadians.

Mr. Dion’s shockingly poor performance in Question period and the foul-up over his TV response to the Prime Minister’s speech leaves even his most ardent admirers — and I am one — shaking their heads.

Can the Coalition hold together? Can Dion hang on to his short-term leadership? I think there is a stronger case to be made for continuing the coalition, than for the future of Mr. Dion.

However, if Mr. Dion goes down, it will not be because of the attack of the Liberal MP from Toronto, Jim Karygiannis. He’s known as a loose cannon and has no credbility with his fellow MPs.

The Coalition has the opportunity to take a set of decisive steps over the next six weeks to prepare for taking over government. The first should be to organize an Economic Renewal Conference that would bring together Canada’s best minds to address the steps that need to be taken to protect jobs, homes and savimgs in the months ahead.

The second step should be to lay out a series of general policy initiatives that would reassure the country that the Coalition has a plan for going forward. These should be general statements of principle, such as a commitent to prudent fiscal management, economic renewal, short-term deficit financing, and measures to revitalize the auto sector and the forestry industries.

With the Governor General’s approval, the Prime Minister has shut down Parliament at the very time when the country needs urgent action to deal with these matters. There is zero prospect of the Conservative party winning a confidence vote when the House returns at the end of January.

There is one thing that could change all this: Mr. Harper’s resignation. It is time for Conservative MPs to send this man, who brought them to power and then threw it away with a deceitful, mean-spirited and almost psychopathic series of machinations, into the pages of history.

With Mr. Harper, by the way, should go his chief wind bag, John Baird.  On national TV this morning, Mr. Baird boasted that the Tories would go “over the heads of Parliamentarians and over the head of the Governor General,” to the people, in their bid to stay in power. There was a time when such talk would have warranted a trip to the executioner’s block.

Prime Minister Harper has chosen a dangerous and destructive course in his desperate attempt to hang on to power in a Parliament that no longer has confidence in him.

His attempt to label the Liberal-NDP coalition as a “socialist-separatist driven attack on Canada’s democracy” may help firm up his own core support. But it comes with potentially awful consequences.

• First, it denigrates and derides the right of Quebec voters to have their representatives heard in Ottawa. The consequences for the Conservative party will be incalculable.  The Prime Minister is destroying for a generation the last faint hope of the Conservative party for ever winning over Quebec voters.

• Second, Mr. Harper’s strident attack can only stir up animosity toward Quebec across Canada. Far from the Coalition being a threat to national unity, it’s the Prime Minister’s distortions and misrepresentations that are the real menace.

None of this should surprise us. Mr. Harper’s reputation as a bully is well earned. In the words of Bill Casey, the Nova Scotia Tory who was kicked out of caucus, “he doesn’t understand or accept that the Opposition should even exist.”

There are signs that the Harper onslaught may not be working. An overnight poll from Angus Reid Strategies, reported on CTV, has 40 per cent of Canadians wanting a change of government, with 35 per cent saying the Conservatives should stay on.

The Harper pr offensive against the Coalition goes so far as to call it “an attack on Canada itself.” The Tory web site asserts that “no responsible national leader would ever give power to a group that wants to destroy” the country. Ridiculous nonsense!

It is laughable to suggest that Mr. Dion, whose Clarity Act has put an end to separatist designs to take Quebec out of Canada through another phony referendum, would be party to any such strategy.

It got so ridiculous that the PM told the House the Coalition leaders didn’t dare show the Canadian flag at their media briefing. The picture above proves otherwise.

There’s mounting pressure on Mr. Harper to resign, although it’s hard to imagine him ever doing this. On CBC this morning, Bill Casey called Canada “a country in crisis.” The solution, he said, is for Mr, Harper to step down.

Perrin Beatty, the former Joe Clark cabinet minister who now heads up the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, has taken a roundhouse swipe at the “political opportunism” going on in Ottawa. He says business wants “an economic stimulus program as quickly as possible.” Clearly, that won’t come from the Harper government.

Canadians need to remember we did not elect a government on October 14^th. We elected a Parliament, and MPs have the duty of defeating a government when they no longer have confidence in it. If the Coalition can assure the Governor General that they have the confidence of the House, she has the duty to give them the opportunity of governing.

Mr. Harper has lost the confidence of Parliament. Now he’s rapidly losing the confidence of the country. It’s time for the Great Divider, and his entire government, to bow out.

Shortly after the federal election, I wrote that I had no regrets having supported Stephane Dion when I was a delegate to the Liberal leadership convention in Montreal in December 2006.

My words then:

“Liberals wanted a true Liberal who hadn’t been compromised by the sponsorship scandal, and Mr. Dion was our man. He’d crafted the Clarity Act, a key weapon against separatism. Even those who voted against him recognized his intellectual capacity, his sincerity, and his unquestioned integrity.”

Now, with the Liberals and the NDP having engineered a coalition that will have the support of the Bloc Quebecois, it is apparent that Mr. Dion’s political skills are somewhat more sophisticated than almost anyone has realized.

At the same time, it’s evident that the current Prime Minister has proven surprisingly lacking in leadership capabilities. His spin machine and ad spending splurge convinced many Canadians that here was a man of decisive leadership, trustworthy, and far-sighted. How hollow all that has been proven!

The Tory dogs of war are already nipping at his heels. Regardless of how the current episode ends, it is hard to see how Mr. Harper will ever again enjoy the unstinting loyalty of his followers - albeit forced in many cases – that was his during his time at 24 Sussex. The Globe and Mail suppprted the Conservative party in the election, but is now calling for Mr. Harper’s resignation.

There is much moaning and fretting over the perceived instability the Coalition will bring to government, and about the so-called constitutional crisis arising from the Opposition’s actions over the past few days.

In fact, there is every liklihood that the Coalition will be more stable and that it will enjoy the confidence of more Canadians than Mr. Harper ever commanded.

My sense is that given the opportunity, Mr. Dion will be a fine Prime Minister who will build consensus in addressing the critical issues of economic stimulus, environmental protection, and social progress.

The 18-month agreement between the NDP, the Liberals, and the Bloc ensures the Coalition of a smooth passage through Parliament at least until the middle of 2010. The NDP-Liberal accord runs until June 30, 2011, with the Bloc having the option to sign on for the additional year.

There is really no constitutional crisis at the present time. Every Parliamentary tradition dictates that when a govenment loses the confidence of the House (is defeated on a confidence motion) the Governor General has the obligation to invite another party leader to form a government if it looks as if he/she could gain the support of a majority of MPs.

This is what happened in 1926 when Mr. King asked for dissolution and an election. Instead the Governor General, Lord Byng, called on Mr. Meighen and the Conservatives to form a government. When the Tories were defeated in the House, there was of course no alternative to an election.

In the present circumstance, there could only be a constitutional crisis if Mr. Harper sought to prorogue the House without the Opposition being given the chance to mount a non-confidence motion. The Governor General has the right to deny such a request, but this has never happened.

Should Mr. Harper attempt to carry on without the support of Parliament, the resulting uproar would indeed generate a good deal of economic as well as political uncertainty. This is not something the country needs at this time. Let’s hope he won’t attempt such a desperate strategem.

What brought all this on, of course, was the PM’s extreme partisanship and his attempt to use the Economic Update (and the crisis it was supposed to address) to put forward an ideological agenda. What little economic content the Update had was, to put it quite simply, pathetically inadequate.

Perhaps now’s the time to give a cheer for minority government. Canada, more than most other democracies, invests almost unlimited authority in a Prime Minister with a majority.

Our first-past-the-post electoral system invariably gives the winning party far more power than it deserves based on its share of the popular vote.

John Turner once told me, “the people are always right.” Maybe the wisdom of this adage was proven anew when Canadians chose to limit the authority of Mr. Harper when they voted on October 14th.

Also worth reading:

Four wise men would show coalition the way

Future looks bleak for PM, Tories