[LINK] "Cold, hard coalition lessons from this side of the pond"

[rfmcdonald]

The Globe and Mail's Campbell Clark suggests that Britain's experiment in coalition government might restart the idea of a coalition government here in Canada, with the social-democratic New Democratic Party playing probably to the opposition Liberals what the Liberal Democrats play to the Conservatives. Might, mind,

Britain’s new government has demonstrated that coalition governments are possible, even outside of wartime, in the modern era of Westminster-style parliaments. At the very least, it will revive questions for our politicians here: Would Michael Ignatieff, or even Stephen Harper, invite Jack Layton’s NDP into a coalition?

New British Prime Minister David Cameron and Liberal-Democrat deputy Nick Clegg have even devised a new plan to ensure stability in a hung Parliament: a five-year fixed term for elections to be set out in law. But Canada’s lesson is that politicians’ electoral calculations are not easily contained.

Pure politics are the driving force that makes and breaks minority governments. Mr. Harper, like Paul Martin before him, governs until the other parties think they’ll do better in an election. Or until the Prime Minister does. Can a coalition escape those forces?

[. . .]

In six years of minority Parliaments, you would think Canada had seen all the cliffhanger twists. But we haven’t seen this one: two parties actually forming a real coalition, with each holding ministerial posts in cabinet.

One might think the prospect for that in Canada died with Mr. Dion’s attempt. Mr. Harper painted it as unholy, and relishes the idea of campaigning against the coalition bogeyman. The new Liberal Leader, Mr. Ignatieff, killed it. But what made it politically untouchable was two things: it depended on support, in Parliament at least, from the separatist Bloc Québécois, and it would be led by a Liberal Leader who had been beaten into a distant second place.

Another election, and another minority Parliament – our new normal – could leave either Mr. Ignatieff or Mr. Harper in a mathematical position to form a coalition with the NDP, and a British example to point to. Canadians will certainly expect their political leaders to say if they would, too. It’s no longer quite as hypothetical.