On Wednesday night the Governor General of Canada delivered the Throne Speech, by which the agenda of the government for the coming parliamentary session is formally made public. Given that the current government, headed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party, has only a plurality of seats in the House of Commons, election speculation is rife.
A vote on the Throne Speech is a confidence matter. However, the current indication is that most members of the Liberal party will abstain, which would be good enough for Harper to remain in office.
Votes on the individual bills are another matter. The government needs the support (or abstention) of at least one other party to pass its bills (and they also require support of the Senate). Many of these will be confidence matters, too, starting with the crime bill.
I wonder what those closer to the unfolding events think. From my vantage point, I can’t decide whether Harper is hoping for an election. It certainly looks as though the Liberals fear one. I can’t think of a reason why either the NDP or the Bloc would want an election soon. So, my guess is an election is not coming soon, as Harper needs some high-profile defeat to get one, and the other parties like the current situation more than they like the idea of taking a chance on a Conservative majority–or even a larger Conservative minority (which might be the most likely outcome if an election were held this fall). The other parties can always let bills pass passively, by abstaining or just not having all their members show up. But if the government decides it wants an election, it could get more aggressive with the policy content of its bills, thereby compelling the opposition parties to vote no.
See Paulitics for an aggregation of polling trends: The Conservatives currently are about five percentage points ahead, though this is may be overly sensitive to what looks like an outlier near the end of the current sequence. Perhaps more to the point, the three largest parties’ current standings are not much different from what their national vote percentages were at the January, 2006, election.
I think Harper is prepared to govern as if he has a majority – ie not allow any changes to his legislation – and let the chips fall where they may. He is not scared of an election because of the incease in poll numbers.
The question is, how long will the Liberals sit by and passively allow the Conservatives to govern this way? Given the current disorder in the party, you have to say they will swallow their self-pride and keep sitting there glumly.
Seed planted by Chris B — 19 October 2007 @ 22:47
I think the NDP does want an election, actually–they just won that by-election in Québec, after all, and have been very buoyed by rising poll numbers there when the Liberals can’t get it together. They seem to believe they can make gains if there is an election, but they’re not doing so well that they’re going to push push push for it, either.
Seed planted by Idealistic Pragmatist — 19 October 2007 @ 22:56
Senate abolition is in the news again. The NDP proposes a referendum on it, and Prime Minister Harper sounds interested.
Some commentators say all federations have upper houses. But there are countries with provinces, regions or departments that have their own governments with some autonomy in their matters, that have no upper house. Are they not federations? Or are they perhaps not “real” federations because they have — well, no upper house? Examples: Peru, Turkey, and surely many others.
Comments?
Seed planted by Wilfred Day — 09 November 2007 @ 13:17
It’s important to recall that national figures for the Bloc are meaningless – they are a regional secessionist party with no interest in forming government, even in a coalition.
The NDP is a minor national party that cannot hope to form government, except through coalition, which has never occurred.
So for both the Bloc and NDP, it is mostly a matter of their MPs wanting to keep their seats. If most MPs feel they are more likely to lose their seats in six months time, or that the best chance of growing their ranks is now, then they will attempt to defeat the government. Since they realistically never face the prospect of assuming government, policy seldom enters into their calculus.
At present, it appears that the Bloc could do much worse electorally in six months, and the NDP is polling better than their historical average, so both parties are inclined to fight an election.
Strategically, opposing the government makes sense for them too. Since the ‘government-in-waiting’ Liberals appear unusually weak (historically speaking), the Bloc and NDP can afford to not support the government, and leave it to the Official Opposition to squirm uncomfortably and sweat finding ways to let the gov’t survive.
Ugly, but fun to watch.
Where does that leave the Conservatives? The Conservatives want their minority government to last as long as possible, for both tactical and strategic reasons.
First, historically elections for Conservatives governments are always riskier than for Liberal ones. A minority bird in hand…
Second, the Liberals have spent the last three elections painting the Conservatives as ‘scary’, and possessing a ‘hidden agenda’ that will be unleashed if they win government. The Conservatives believe that the best way to blunt this thrice-successful attack is to get Canadians reacquainted with Conservative government.
Finally, there are long-term strategic reasons for the long minority. Federal Conservative governments in Canada are relatively rare – and this brand of populist conservatism has never governed at all.
In 1993, Canada’s 2-plus party system was destroyed, and became a 1-plus party system. Until the unusual Conservative victory in 2006, Canada appeared to be headed toward Japan-style single-party dominance. Many Conservatives feared that had Liberal hegemony not ended in 2006, Canadian democracy, at least federally, may have been irretrievably lost.
Thus, one of PM Harper’s long-term goals is to recast Canadian politics with the Conservatives as permanent contenders for government. Harper hopes to disintermediate the clientele-driven collectivist politics mastered by latter-day Liberals. This means reforming institutions to foster direct dialogue between government and citizens, and a strong dose of economic liberalism. If anything, this is his ‘hidden agenda’, and a brash one indeed for Canadian politics.
While this task may eventually require majority government and one or more referenda, some of the groundwork and much of the public persuasion has been undertaken in the current minority mandate. As long as that work can continue, the Conservatives are happy with their minority status.
On the other hand, if the polls ever give the Conservatives a commanding lead, the siren call of the ballot box may become too difficult to ignore.
In that case, I believe that the Conservatives are likely to champion some of their planned reforms as part of their bid for re-election.
Seed planted by Ross Trusler — 10 November 2007 @ 02:18
The Liberal dominance of 1993-2004 was very unusual in Canada in that there were two center right parties and Bloc Quebecois cause the Liberals to win majorities with relative ease.
If the Reform/Alliance Party had an agreement not to compete in each other seats or strongholds then the Liberal majorities would have been minorities.
So Canada is now stuck with permanent minority government unless Conservatives can sweep Quebec, without sweeping Quebec, they can’t win a majority.
Perhaps the only solution is to move to a system of Proportional Representation, Canada won’t do that unless the next election lead to a reverse plurality situtation.
Seed planted by Suaprazzodi — 13 November 2007 @ 07:19