Is Stéphane Dion About to Become PM?

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

Hey, why should a little thing like losing an election stop Canada’s perennial rulers from resuming their rightful place as the government in Ottawa?

Don’t look now, but is Stéphane Dion about to become our prime minister?

This shift in power would be even more dramatic than Dion’s Green Shift, which went nowhere in October.

Apparently the Liberals have been making plans to bring down the Harper minority government by putting forward a motion of non-confidence in parliament to defeat the Conservatives and replace them with a coalition made up of themselves and the New Democrats, and perhaps even including the separatist Bloc Québécois.

And what is their flimsy excuse? Ontario MP John McCallum said they were seeking to replace Stephen Harper because the Conservatives failed to offer an economic stimulus package when the rest of the world had done so.

This Liberal ploy may be technically legal, but it almost amounts to a non-military coup d’état. No federal government has ever been replaced by a coalition of parties that lost an election (though it has happened provincially).

The Conservatives won a renewed mandate just seven weeks ago. They increased their numbers in the House of Commons by 19 seats, and in fact, with 143 seats, were just 12 short of obtaining a majority in the 308-seat House of Commons.

The Liberals, on the other hand, were not just defeated but trounced.

They lost 26 seats, and their share of the popular vote, at 26.2 percent, was their worst showing in over a century.

Yet now they are talking about a coalition with the NDP and maybe also the Bloc. “The three opposition parties agree on more things than they disagree upon,” one NDP MP has stated.

The Liberals and NDP would need the Bloc to be at least onside, because together the Liberals, with 77 seats, and the NDP, with 29 seats, don’t even come close to reaching the 155 seats needed for a working majority.

The Bloc holds 49 Quebec seats.

So, are we about to see our Liberal-appointed Governor General, Michaëlle Jean, ask Stéphane Dion, a man who has resigned the leadership of his own party, to form a government and become prime minister?

Or might it be Bob Rae or Michael Ignatieff, neither of whom was even running for the job in the recent election? Neither man has even been elected leader of his own party, much less of the country.

And if this coalition were to include the Bloc Québécois, might Gilles Duceppe perhaps get a cabinet position? How about something like minister of national unity?

The chutzpah of Canada’s “natural governing party” is boundless. They really do think they have a divine right to rule Canada, and clearly see Stephen Harper as merely a usurper who has gained a temporary hold on government through some kind of electoral sleight of hand.

So, should the three opposition parties defeat the government, Harper should ask the Governor General to dissolve parliament and call new elections – unpalatable and expensive as that will be. Under no circumstances should someone else be allowed to form a government without going to the country first.

Why? Because, while it is true that the opposition parties won more seats and votes on Oct. 14 than did the Conservatives, the electorate was not in full possession of the facts.

How many people across the country who voted for the Liberals or NDP might instead have voted for the Tories, had they known these parties planned an alliance with each other and, more particularly, with the Bloc? We don’t know.

Liberal voters, in particular, might not want to be in bed with either separatists or social democrats. So let’s do it right this time: let the Bloc, Liberals and NDP run under their true collective colours, and if they beat Harper, fine, they can then form a government.

And, should the Liberals and NDP join with the Bloc and manage to overthrow the newly-elected Conservative government of Canada, they will in effect be saying that they consider the separatists more legitimate, and better for Canada, than the Conservatives. Wonder what Alberta, in particular, will make of this.

Should this come to pass, the road to Canada's dismemberment will become a superhighway.