The Coalition “Debate”: How Stupid Will It Get?
By John Deverell
There is little more annoying than listening to the leaders of Canada’s two larger political parties opine on what the May 2 election result will mean for “democracy.”
Stephen Harper argues that, if the voting system confers a Parliamentary majority or large minority on him and the Conservative party, then they will embody the expressed “will of the people” and hold the only legitimate “democratic mandate” to govern.
The popular vote, or even the seat count in Parliament, doesn’t much matter in Harperland. No matter how you slice it, the largest party on May 3 will be the Conservative party. It is led by Stephen Harper, and it embodies the will of the people. That’s his shameless version of “Canadian democracy 2011.”
Any Grade One child would be embarrassed to call a 38 per cent popular vote–or anything less than 50 per cent plus one–a democratic mandate. After that age, however, we somehow get collectively stupid and, like Stephen Harper, equate variants of minority rule with “democracy.”
Since the weekend Michael Ignatieff has been urging Canadians to “rise up” and defend Canadian “democracy.” He seems perplexed by the tepid public response.
No doubt the Ignatieff pitch appeals strongly to Ignatieff. In his fantasy case on May 2 the Liberal Party, on a very thin popular vote, would once again become the majority or the largest faction in Parliament. This would allow Ignatieff to become Prime Minister and, like Harper before him, claim the mandate of “democracy.”
In a more plausible scenario, after the defeat of a Stephen Harper minority government the Governor General would ask the Liberal leader whether he could form a stable government.
Ignatieff on Tuesday told CBC’s Peter Mansbridge he would try, and again specified there will be no coalition after May 2 – which is only to say there would be no New Democrats, Conservatives, Greens or Bloquistes in an Ignatieff Liberal cabinet. Clearly the Governor General would want some evidence that other parties were prepared to support or tolerate an Ignatieff-led minority government for a period of time.
All this serves to remind us that the Canadian House of Commons, which has operated under near-constant threat of dissolution since 2004, after May 2 will remain far removed from providing popular majority government. Its claim to be a responsive and accountable instrument of representative democracy is false. Neither Stephen Harper nor Michael Ignatieff is proposing to make it democratic.
If either leader were promising all Canadians equal votes and proportional representation in the House of Commons, an astonished public would have reason to be grateful and even enthusiastic. Suddenly a major politician would be promising to address all voters on equal terms – a first in Canadian history. The era of false majority governments and unstable minority parliaments would be coming to an end.
With fair voting in place the phrase “coalition government” would become as commonplace as “cabinet shuffle,” but with more public explanation and accountability for the arrangements. Political parties would have to cooperate, in one combination or another, to form governments representing a majority of Canadians.
Canadians would experience, belatedly, life in a 20th century parliamentary democracy.
Until then we will remain saddled with the pre-democratic 19th century model. It’s hard to be proud of it – and hard to stomach the insincere “democratic” cant of the politicians who refuse to reform it.