Blamblog - Brett Lamb's Blog

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Coalition Comment

Good comment from this post at Kinsella's:

Lost here among those casting for partisan advantage of one sort of another are some rather fundamental and critical democratic principles. Those whose reactions to all of this are based on touting their party's position are generally missing the larger points, with potentially catastrophic consequences for the country.

1. The charge that a coalition of opposition parties comprises "overturning the results of the last election" and the casual tossing around of terms like a "coup d'etat" to describe coalition government, are execrable. They amount to the following: only the largest party in the House is in law entitled to govern; if the largest minority can not win confidence the only option is to return to the polls; if the result of that election is another minority, the largest party governs or there is another election ad infinitum. Not only is this utterly at odds with our tradition and custom (which govern here and in the end I don;t care that much about), more importantly it represents a massive shift of power to the largest party in the House, akin to the power normally reserved to majority governments. Our system, already suffering a democratic deficit, becomes very much less democratic.

2. The notion that the PM could dismiss the GG, seriously thrown out there today by our national newspaper, is an abomination. Could Frank Miller have dismissed the LG of the day? The logic here is that the largest party in the House -- even a minority -- is to be given the unfettered authority to determine the nature and the existence of a governing majority in the House, if any. If that largest minority party happens not to be part of an apparent existing sufficiently coherent majority, the minority party, in its sole discretion, may choose to return to the polls. In which case if the election returns similar results, that minority party alone retains the same authority to govern as it sees fit or return to the polls. Again the end result: a massive shift of power to the largest minority party, and a massive loss in power for a multi-party majority.

The notion that Harper has the unilateral authority to dissolve a parliament over the oppositon of a majority is similarly disturbing from basic the standpoint of basic dem. principles.

The issue here is not the eco stimulus, whose the PM, or what the effect on Iggy may be. The issue here is more important: are we going to turn effective governing authority over to the largest minority party in the House.

Harper's gambit here is more about structurally and permanently increasing the powers of the largest party in minority than anything else.

Not small matters, all of them more important than the issues of the day, as important as they are.
Michael K | 12.02.08 - 8:25 pm | #

12:31 AM , # , |