Truemors
Hey Stephen Harper! There is nothing undemocratic OR illegal about the opposition parties in Canada seeking to form a coalition government. It has happened twice before in Canadian history, although granted it this is the first time the issue has come up since the Canadian Constitution was signed in 1982.
"We will use all legal means to resist this undemocratic seizure of power," he told Conservatives at their annual Christmas party at an Ottawa hotel. "My friends, such an illegitimate government would be a catastrophe, for our democracy, our unity and our economy, especially at a time of global instability."
It seems Stephen Harper has forgotten the right wing vote-splitting days of the 1990's when the Reform Party from the West (later known as the Canadian Alliance) hobbled the national Conservative Party. It wasn't until the Conservative Party was able to pull these Western upstarts back into a united right fold, by forming a coalition of the parties, that the Tories were able to win elections again.
The division of the right-of-center electorate between Reform/Alliance and the Progressive Conservatives worked to the advantage of the Liberals, particularly in Ontario, where the first-past-the-post electoral system allowed the party to win nearly all the House seats in the province in the 1993, 1997 and 2000 federal elections. However, while Liberal representation in the House of Commons stood well above the party's proportion of the vote, Progressive Conservative and (to a lesser extent) NDP representation remained significantly below their respective vote percentages; only Reform/Alliance and the BQ attained representation roughly in proportion to their electoral following.
Forget the fact that the Tories of today are really a right-wing coalition party, coalitions like the one that was formed by the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois can be traced back to the dawn of democracy. Effectively a Canadian triumvirate, the three-way opposition coalition is nothing new. The Roman Empire had two very famous triumvirates in the history of its democracy.
Twice in the late pre-Principate period of the Roman republic, political power shifted from the formal magistrates and Senate to three ambitious men, who thus constituted a transitional government, known as triumviratus, each time only to break up again in civil war:
What modern scholars call the First Triumvirate was an informal political alliance of two rival generals, Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great representing the popular viz. senatorial party, with the extremely wealthy businessman Marcus Licinius Crassus.[1] This fell apart after the death of Crassus, and the two other triumvirs fought a civil war, during which Pompey was killed and Caesar established his sole rule as perpetual dictator.
The Second Triumvirate was a formal governing body, consisting of Octavian and Mark Antony, the rivals for real power, and third wheel Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. Lepidus was sidelined early on in the triumvirate, and Antony was eliminated in a civil war, leaving Octavian as the sole leader.
Of course Rome was a Democratic Republic and Canada is a Constitutional Monarchy but to call a coalition of elected leaders undemocratic is nothing more than a scare tactic that panders to a lowest common denominator. Ditto for throwing around the word separatist every time a microphone is nearby.
Just how valid is Harper's claim that changing governments without a new election would be undemocratic?
"It's politics, it's pure rhetoric," said Ned Franks, a retired Queen's University expert on parliamentary affairs. "Everything that's been happening is both legal and constitutional."
Other scholars are virtually unanimous in their agreement. They say Harper's populist theory of democracy is more suited to a U.S.-style presidential system, in which voters cast ballots directly for a national leader, than it is to Canadian parliamentary democracy.
"He's appealing to people who learned their civics from American television," said Henry Jacek, a political scientist at McMaster University.
In Canada, there's no national vote for prime minister. People elect MPs in 308 ridings, and a government holds power only as long as it has the support of a majority of those MPs.
"We have a rule that the licence to govern is having the confidence of the House of Commons," said Peter Russell, a former University of Toronto professor and adviser to past governors general.
"I'm sorry, that's the rule. If they want to change it to having a public opinion poll, we'd have to reform and rewrite our Constitution."
Harper himself signed a letter to then-Governor General Adrienne Clarkson in 2004, claiming the right to form a government if Paul Martin's minority Liberals could be defeated in a confidence vote in the Commons.
Stephen Harper played the rarely used prorogue card to get Governor-General Michaelle Jean to suspend parliament so that he could hold on power for 7 more weeks. Now Harper and the Conservative minority can rule Canada without the confidence of Parliament and without the input from the other elected members of the House of Commons.
Now that, Mr. Harper, IS undemocratic!
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (1)
at 17:37 on December 5th, 2008
I went out to vote this year because I did not want a LIBERAL or DIONThey are all acting like spoiled children and thinking of themselves insteadof the people in this country and what is best for our country right now.We need to support our Prime Minister the one we voted in.