Liberals, NDP and Bloc sign coalition pact (Canada)

The Toronto Star ^ | Dec 01, 2008 05:38 PM | Les Whittington Bruce Campion-Smith Tonda MacCharles

[fanfan]

OTTAWA–NDP Leader Jack Layton and Liberal Leader Stephane Dion have signed an historic accord to form a coalition government to replace Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives.

In an extraordinary scene on Parliament Hill, Dion and Layton signed a formal deal to work together through to June, 2011.

And they signed an agreement with Bloc Quebecois Gilles Duceppe that commits the separatist party to support the coalition through to June, 2010.

The opposition parties are threatening to defeat the Conservatives next week.

However their plan to assume government would require the blessing of the Governor General.

Under the deal, the Liberal caucus would be responsible for choosing the finance minister, a key role as the country faces economic storms.

The NDP would get six positions in the 24-member cabinet as well as six parliamentary secretary positions.

Layton said the coalition would move with a stimulus package that is "prompt and prudent."

That plan includes infrastructure spending, home construction, renovations and financial support for "struggling sectors" that can demonstrate a viable business plan.

He urged Harper to accept his looming defeat "gracefully" and not make moves that create "further instability and delay."

Duceppe said his party would not introduce any non-confidence motions or vote against any budgets or speeches from the throne until the agreement expires but would be free to vote as it wishes on any other legislation.

Dion will serve as leader until a Liberal leadership convention in May.

The NDP and Liberals have settled on an agreement to form a coalition government, with the support of the Bloc Quebecois.

They could defeat the Conservatives as early as next Monday.

Liberals Michael Ignatieff, Bob Rae and Dominic LeBlanc, all candidates for the party leadership, appeared together to show support for the decision.

Rae said "there’s no turning back" from plans to toss Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives from power.

Liberal MP Martha Hall Findlay said the deal was done and no announcement by Harper - short of proroguing parliament, which she does not believe he will do - is going to stop the opposition parties from defeating the government next Monday.

Ignatieff told reporters that the ongoing race would not preclude any of the contenders from serving in a coalition cabinet.

Ignatieff and Leblanc said it was the prerogative of the prime minister to choose.

"The decisions on who is in cabinet are made by the prime minister of Canada, they’re not made by me, they’re not made by Dom and they’re not made by Bob," said Ignatieff.

"And that’s very clear in the accord that’s to say the authority and the prerogatives of the prime minister have not been compromised. It’s up to Mr.Dion to make the choices that he feels are right for the country."

Leblanc responded: "Michael is always right!"

Harper got a standing ovation from Conservatives as he took his place in the Commons with two notable exceptions - Justice Minister Rob Nicholson and Trade Minister Stockwell Day.

Dion got a standing ovation from Liberal and NDP MPs as he kicked off question period with a question to the prime minister about stimulus for the country’s economy.

Lisa Raitt, a rookie Conservative minister, was among some Conservatives who put on a brave face, saying she was honoured to have served the people of her Halton riding even if it turns out to have been a short time.

The prime minister dismissed Dion’s shot in the Commons about playing partisan games in his economic statement.

Harper shot back that the Liberal leader was "about to play one of the biggest political games" in the country’s history.

Harper appealed to the opposition to wait until seeing the budget, scheduled for Jan. 27.

"I understand he wants to be Prime Minister. . . . I wouldn’t want to be governing the economy in his position," Harper said, referring to the coalition of "socialist economic" and "separatists."

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty accused the Liberals of making a "deal with the devil" and said the NDP "don’t know the first thing" about running the economy.

Sources said the deal calls for the coalition government to deliver a federal budget immediately after taking office. The budget would include a major package of stimulus measures to shore up the troubled economy.

The NDP said this morning that the deal has not been signed but the two sides are "very close."

The game of high-stakes political intrigue has set the stage for a week in which Harper's Conservatives will fight to retain power.

It appears nothing short of a fresh economic statement with measures to help Canadians cope with the recession is likely to dissuade the opposition from defeating the Conservative minority and trying to form a coalition government.

Flaherty kicked off the day yesterday with a full-scale retreat from his Nov. 27 economic statement, with a promise of economic stimulus measures in an early budget on Jan. 27.

For the first time, he hinted strongly that Ottawa would bail out Canada's struggling Big Three automakers.

But the Liberals and New Democrats said the latest concessions from the Conservatives are not enough to derail the move to defeat the Tory minority and take power with a coalition cabinet. A confidence vote that could topple the government is expected on Dec. 8.

Another bitter episode was spawned when the NDP said it might pursue legal action after the Conservatives taped a private New Democrat caucus meeting Saturday and distributed the transcripts and recordings to the media yesterday.

In the meeting, NDP Leader Jack Layton tells his caucus that "moves" with respect to the Bloc Québécois "a long time ago" helped lay the groundwork for the coalition now being discussed – a statement the Conservatives say suggests the fiscal update is merely an excuse for the revolt.

Yesterday, in another reversal from the economic package, Flaherty told a telephone news conference the government would remove from legislation implementing the package a bid to temporarily ban public service strikes. On Saturday, he backed down on the plan to scrap federal subsidies for political parties.

Flaherty stressed that the government has tried to stave off an economic slowdown by using lower taxes – he brought in a six-year, $60 billion tax reduction program in 2007 – to improve business conditions. But he said there will be further stimulus to the economy, and suggested it might include help for the auto sector.

"We're going to have to deal with the automotive issue, obviously," he added. "Will we have to help a particular sector or more than one particular sector? The answer is probably yes."

The federal and Ontario governments have asked Ford, General Motors and Chrysler – thought to be collectively seeking $3 billion to $4 billion in aid – to produce recovery plans by Friday.

Flaherty's statements indicate the Tories are trying to limit damage in the wake of an economic package that has raised questions about the government's credibility and political smarts.

"The stability of the government and the economy is paramount," he said. Rather than propose to scrap the federal subsidy for political parties, the Conservatives will move to freeze the payments at the current $1.95 per vote and put the issue before the public for future debate.

Flaherty sounded unusually subdued. While his future was not discussed, questions about his role as finance minister can be expected now that the economic strategy has blown up in the government's face.

Since last week, the Liberals, NDP and Bloc have been involved in closed-door talks aimed at preparing a coalition government.

There are questions whether the Liberals could act cohesively to join in an attempt to oust Harper. The main issue surrounds which Liberal would head the coalition and potentially become prime minister. It is known that Stéphane Dion, the caretaker leader, would expect to do so, despite doubts among some Liberals who blame him for the party's Oct. 14 election defeat.

In a meeting in Toronto last night, Liberal leadership contender Bob Rae tried to convince fellow contenders Michael Ignatieff and Dominic LeBlanc to show a unified front by accepting the deal with Dion as coalition leader, according to a Rae supporter. Rae argued there is no reason to change "the legitimate leadership process" that will replace Dion in May.

For the opposition, the "central issue" continues to be the Tories' lack of a package of significant new measures to address the economy, which Flaherty admits has fallen into a recession, said Liberal finance critic John McCallum.

"I still don't think anything has really changed," McCallum (Markam-Unionville) said after Flaherty's news conference.

He said there's also a growing question of credibility with the Harper government. "Here we are when they're desperate to save the government and they'll promise us the moon. But when we're promised the moon, I don't think we necessarily believe it."

Deputy NDP leader Thomas Mulcair said the provocative economic update was a "terrible miscalculation by the Conservatives."

"We're not going to give them another chance," he said. "We're structured, we're organized, we've worked very hard for the past four days and you're going to see the fruits of that labour very shortly."

Mulcair also said the covert taping of the NDP call "shows the desperation of the Conservatives."

Pierre Poilievre, Harper's parliamentary secretary, told CTV the transcript shows there were "members of the NDP who were working with the separatists who want to destroy Canada in order to take control of the country in a perilous coalition.

"All of this was hatched long ago, well before any of the controversy over the fall economic statement. That is shocking news," he said.

The recording was made by a Conservative who was able to dial into Layton's teleconference call with New Democrat MPs.

Mulcair denied his party was engaged in discussions with the Bloc before the Nov. 27 economic statement. The situation is no different from "consultations" Harper had with the NDP and the Bloc as opposition leader against the minority Liberals in 2004, Mulcair said.

He also said the NDP is looking at its legal options, saying party discussions were "illegally intercepted."

The Tories downplayed the 2004 consultations, saying there was never any intention of a coalition.

There were several signals over the weekend that the affair has damaged Harper's leadership. Several senior Conservative government members admitted they had been hearing from supporters outraged over Harper's moves.

With files from Linda Diebel

[BillyBoy]

I obviously prefer the republican form of government we have in USA (and technically in Mexico, except their elections are ultra corrupt and tend to get power thur bribes and assassination). The reason why, of course, is we have separation of powers that allows the executive, judicial, and legislative branches to all be from different parties and provides more checks and balance. I especially dislike the british "honours" system where they get to dole out rewards and give elite members of society seats in the House of Lords for life, where they get a big government salary and perks and don't even have any legislative check over the House of Commons.

There are two aspects of the British system I prefer over our own government though: the "prime minister question time" where members of Congress from each party are allowed to speak up and call the "ruling government" to task on its agenda (vs. the U.S. system of "state of the union address" which has evolved into one big, pre-scripted meaningless pep rally, follwed by a pre-scripted "opposition response" given to no one except the cameraman). John McCain agreed with me on the latter, and wanted to implement something like that in the USA. But of course Obama would never allow the GOP minority in Congress the power to debate him and debunk his socialist agenda in front him on live TV cameras. The second, of course, is the ability to get rid of cabinet members by votes of "no confidence", because here in the USA the only way to get rid of them is either the President fires the bastards or Congress manages to impeachment and remove them for high crimes (which never happens) As a result we get stuck with people like Janet Reno for eight years. In England she could have been "dismissed" by a simple majority "no confidence" vote after the Waco fisaco.

Re - Mexico's political parties. I agree the "conservative" government of Mexico has been a huge pain in the ass, especially Vicente Fox, which is perhaps the biggest disappointment in modern political history since he upset the ruling party after 80 years and had the potential to be a Mexican Ronald Reagan, but instead did nothing but blame the U.S. for six years. Harper's not as conservative as I'd like, but I think he's more of a Canadian version of Bob Ehrlich, whereas Fox is the Mexican version of George Ryan -- an arrogant elitist socialist elected by a "conservative party", yet delights in undermining George Bush, stabbing his own party in the back, and bilking the system to enrich himself. Ironically, the communist PRD would be the best scenario for U.S. conservatives (though not Mexican conservatives), because commies keep their people from escaping and our government would be forced to stop kissing Mexican but and deal with Mexico as an hostile enemy state. I personally would have preferred a PRI win though, because it would have been the most direct repudiation of Vicente Fox's failed policies... I also think many PRI members are more ideologically conservative than Vicente is.

If PRI and PNR agreed to caucus together and back the same person for Speaker/Senate President/etc., they could end "conservative" rule in Mexico very easily though. By simply caucusing together right now, their combined totals would give them 280 seats in the Mexican House (vs. PAN's 206) and 75 seats in the Mexican Senate (vs. PAN's 52)

[northernlightsII]

This GG is Haitian born married to a frenchman and very closely tied to the separatists of Quebec including members of the FlQ a terrorist group who kidnapped and murdered the minister of labour for Quebec in october 1970.Ayers type of people if you please.

[BillyBoy]

Interesting. The current "Governor-General" is Michaëlle Jean, a french canadian black female of Haitian descent. She was appointed under Paul Martin. Gotta give the Liberals bonus points in creativity as they attempted to pander to all groups:

Now I think technically she's appointed by the Queen, but the Queen "appoints" whoever the Prime Minster "recommends" to her. One of the problems in a parlimentary system is a loop hole where the PM has the power to "dismiss" a Governor-General at will during a "crisis", but the Governor-General also has the same power to dismiss a Prime Minster. I think one of these countries (Australia?) had a "consitutional crisis" back in the 70s or so because both of them tried to dismiss each other AT THE SAME TIME (which seems rather silly by U.S. standards, but it did cause the government into a halting deadlock)

[northernlightsII]

You are totally disingenuous there is no mandate at all from anywhere in this country to make an alliance with a separatist party which is why the Libs and NDP are trumpeting very loudly that there will be no Bloc members in their coalition cabinet.
You cannot sell the Bloc outside Quebec and the Bloc will die the minute it appears to try and become a national party because that it would destroy its base. Don’t try to claim that the west is buying into this. I don’t care where you were born or whatever,the memory of the NEP is still vivid even here in BC which in case you missed turn back conservative this last election. Successful provinces that are not beggars don’t vote liberal ndp or block.You shpuld also look at what happened in Saskatchewan in their provincial election...kick out the NDP....guess why they are prosperous now. Your analysis of the canadian political landscape is completely flawed.

[northernlightsII]

I venture you are a newfie....

[Canadian Volunteer]

“”Say what you will; the facts are what they are.”

And what are the “facts” ? I pointed out the inherent hypocrisy in believing in two opposing ideological forces. You seem to want to rewrite the laws of physics.”

fieldmarshaldj, if you don’t know anything about the Progressive Conservative Party, don’t haul-off denying its previous existence like it’s a Jaberwocky. It existed. For nearly seven decades. Deal with reality, not your preferences.

” “It was a die-hard Conservative idealogue that brought the Progressive Conservative Party to its knees”

And, um, pray tell who was that ?”

Brian Mulroney aka Lyin’ Bryan aka The Chin©

“So you’re blaming the greatest Canadian Conservative in quite literally decades for failure when the current situation is nothing more but a desperate and sad attempt by the rejected and dejected rabid moonbattery of politics attempting an unholy and what may likely prove seriously unpopular coup d’etat of a duly elected plurality gov’t ? You have a most bizarre outlook, sir.”

Yeah, the control freak. The man so focussed on dissing his political rivals that the economy can burn and the peasants eat cake. Yeah, that’s the guy. The one that 60+ percent of the electorate DIDN’T vote for.

“Yes, usually the giving away of right and the taking away of right. I’ve witnessed that schtick for a long time now.”

Ah! I see! I’m glad your life on a desert island is going so glowingly. As I said, that’s exceptional in the experience of most, conservative or liberal.

“Because good people refuse to stand up against wrong. They merely allow enlightened individuals such as yourself “negotiate” the right away. ;-)”

You have an interestingly narrow outlook. I was referring to the day-to-day reality the vast majority face where absolutes as you see them aren’t possible. Like when it’s a toss-up between paying the mortgage or eating after you’ve been laid off. But then again, that would be the fault of the person deciding in your book because he shouldn’t have been stupid enough to be in the position of being laid off, right?

My apologies if I’ve mischaracterised your position. In this day and age, finding someone who seems quite so thoughtless and heartless is unusual and my reaction was visceral.

[cmj328]

it worked just fine for about 7 decades

GST, transfer payments, hospital waiting lists...yep, everything's just fine.

Millions of Canadians aborted...yep, everything's just fine.

Mark Steyn persecuted for trying to save society...yep, everything's just fine.

Bishops, pastors and KoC chapters persecuted for their faith...yep, everything's just fine.

[Cheburashka]

Why can’t Harper call a snap election?

---

They just had an election in October. Precedent says the Prime Minister would be refused if he suggested a new election to avoid losing the ministry. He would then be required to resign.

The proper course is for the opposition to call for a no confidence votee.

[Impy]

The US election? 80% turnout? LMAO. Not since the 19th century.

The number I heard is 64%.

[Impy]

“Our Conservatives are by-and-large to the left of the Democrats”

Not accurate.

[Impy]

If each of our states had races like that, CA wouldn’t have had a GOP Governor since the late ‘60s because they couldn’t win a majority in the legislature (for whom the “Governor” or “Premier” would be the party leader — you’d have had Willie Brown leading the state for a dozen years, a terrifying thought).

That isn't really true because races largely cease to be local in a parliamentary system, the elections would have turned out differently. The USA certainly would have had some GOP PMs between the 50's and 90's. In Cali I presume GOP statewide winners carried the majority of districts including some held by rats. In a parliamentary system many of those seats would have elected Rs instead as people vote for the leader or party with the strength of the local candidates being just one factor.

I prefer a parliament is some ways. Easier to pass things (bad things to of course) and no divided government. Reagan would have been PM and no rat congress to hold him back. Given the 40 year vice grip they had it would have been better for us.

I think Bama carried a majority of house districts but rats would not have been elected in all those conservative seats.

Of course there are downsides as well.

[Nathan Zachary]

"Why can’t Harper call a snap election?"

That is a possibility. But there is a problem. The Speaker of the house was also a Quebec separatist in her wild and crazy days, and was a liberal appointed speaker of the house.

Lawfully, she has to listen to Harpers advise, to either Perouge (restart) parliament ( cooling off period) or call an election.

Lawfully, she has no digression in the matter, it's one or the other, but who knows. This is a coupe like all Marxist coups, planned before Harper even won the election a month ago.

[Nathan Zachary]

"It has been done before and everyone knows how to play the game."

It has not been done before like this. That was in ww1 and the parties were all representive of Canadians across the country, not a separtist party which shouldn't even be seated in Canadian parelement.

This stupid deal gives the separtists, who have the majority of seats in the coalition, the balance of power.

It's insane.

Meanwhile, western Canadians voted almost entirely conservative except for a few seats, and now they will have NO representation.

It's the same old, same old of Ottawa's Liberals thinking that their kingdom shall never be ruled from the west.

Western Canadians should rally and either demand this disgusting behavior of greedy leftists be stopped, or demand separation from eastern Canada. The later is perhaps the best thing they could do.

[Nathan Zachary]

Exactly. And nobody should think he has nothing to do with what is going on. He needs Dion to complete the sale of Canada to the world ruling elite, of which he his the architect of, and Canada his part of the kingdom to rule.

[Perdogg]

I am sure that the East Vancouver riding went NDP. ;)

I am not an expert on Canadian politics, but the possibility of this happening has always been there.

[jaguar21]

Seems like the Bloq could have held out for something. Liberals get cabinet seats, NDP gets cabinet seats, Bloq gets nothing.

[Edgerunner]

Canada really and truly needs to reform the election system, it’s completely out of control.

Yeah...So is ours (USA)

[Lent]

The NDP with several cabinet positions and Dion as PM...bwwwhahaha! What a hapless bunch.

[fanfan]

Seems like the Bloq could have held out for something. Liberals get cabinet seats, NDP gets cabinet seats, Bloq gets nothing.

The Bloq gets veto power over everything. Quebec gets what ever it wants.

[free_life]

I have enjoyed your posts and insight in this thread fieldmarshaldj. Thank you for level headedness. In my family we would say, “you are a good stick” (an old English expression).