Graeme (who is worthy of a vote for Best Non-Partisan Blog, incidentally) is somewhat wrong here:
As Adam Daifallah, one of Canada’s more thoughtful conservative commentators, points out, a coalition government would short-circuit the Liberal Party’s “wilderness years”, a time of rebuilding and reflection it sorely needs in the wake of scandal and defeat. The Progressive Conservatives went through a similar process post-1993, and it worked wonders for their electability. Wilderness years are important to the Liberals, because Canada needs a solid Liberal Party. It’s political mutability makes it a party of the center, which is the only logical position from which to govern a modern, cosmopolitan state.
The Progressive Conservatives did not regenerate their electability. The Progressive Conservatives had “wilderness years” followed by slow and steady extinction. The 1993 election, along with the formation of the Reform Party and the Bloc Quebecois, killed the party and left a small electoral rump that didn’t quite realize it was dead yet, not until Peter Mackay shot it in the head in 2003 and gave the newly-birthed and much further-right Conservative party a touch of centrist respectability.
Moreover, the problem that the Liberals have isn’t a lack of ability to govern well or a lack of ability to attract voters (despite the recent electoral drubbing). The problem that the Liberals have is that the Conservatives were ready to trick out the new system of party funding before they were, and the Tories pushed that advantage as far as it could go. Worse, the Tories are willing to essentially cheat by running negative advertising well in advance of an election, the calling of which remains in their hands for as long as they’re in power. If there was no move for a coalition and Bob Rae or Michael Ignatieff or Steve Furtzwinkel became the Liberal Party leader next week, one week later you’d start seeing Tory ads on the airwaves. “Steve Furtzwinkel: Not A Leader. Not Someone We Can Trust.” And then, come the election, the best-case scenario is that people aren’t sure about Furtzwinkel’s ability to lead, and the worst-case is that they’re sure he isn’t ready.
Do not doubt for a second that the Tories – and Stephen Harper in particular – lack an understanding of the power of political narrative. Harper’s entire governing style is geared towards this method while he has a minority: govern relatively divisively and use it to your advantage, by forcing the Liberals and others to either vote against the ridiculous proposals (and then call an election, which Canadians at this point loathe) or suck it up and vote against them (and then be labeled divisive and partisan and “not willing to make minority government work”).
That kind of institutional abuse of power is difficult to defeat, so I fully understand why the left-wing parties have decided to not play Harper’s game, where their choice is always lose or lose.
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Ugh…that’s one of our “more thoughtful conservative commentators”? Pretty shallow pool of commentating we must have.
Myself, I have trouble swallowing the “wilderness years doing wonders for their electability” narrative — if “wilderness years” means anything, surely it means the state of being unelectable, no? Turn this story around and you might find yourself arguing that having consecutive majorities in the House prior to the “wilderness years” hurt their electability…when what really happened is they shot their own once-great electability to hell, and have been scrambling ever since to get it back. And they’re not there yet!
The idea seems to be that, if the Liberals really understood what was in their own best interests, they’d embrace this golden opportunity to crash and burn. Meanwhile I’d suggest that, applying the same formula, maybe Harper and his crew could stand a little more time in the protective cocoon of unpopularity, and then when they emerge they’ll be even that much more popular.
To be completely fair, Adam Daifallah’s site does not say “The [Progressive] Conservatives” at all. It merely references “The Right.”
So, either Graeme did a poor job paraphrasing, or Adam edited the original post.
Your first paragraph as it is, is based on a misquote.
…I like having elections. They’re fun. Closest thing to a religious holiday I have.
I live in Alberta, surrounded by hard-right voters. Graeme does mention something important, “A Stephane Dion-led, NDP-heavy coalition government is sure to enrage the Western provinces. That’s a bad thing.”
Most of my co-workers and friends would have always laughed at the idea of an Alberta Seperatist movement. Many of them have already expressed the view that if this coalition happens that perhaps its time for alberta to take its proverbial ball and go home.
Having a country led by a party who loss support this election, who are infact currently enjoying the least amount of popular support they’ve had since confederation… not going to go over well with those who actually elected the government.
Consider how ‘regional’ those voters are, and the idea of a western seperatist movement starts to sound more and more like reality and not just rednecks mouthing off.
-Robert, the scared NDP in a torrid sea of Blue
[…] is, ironically a different take on the “wilderness years” debate. [From this article, although MGK had an interesting counterpoint] Like the rightist parties have already done, a coalition could give the fractious leftist parties […]