[LINK] "Liberal-NDP coalition isn’t cheating, it’s democracy"

[rfmcdonald]

Martin Regg Cohn's Toronto Star article rightly criticizes the Ontario Progressive Conservatives' preemptive condemnation of the idea of a possible coalition government uniting the Liberals and the NDP. In parliamentary systems of government like that of Ontario, coalition governments are entirely legitimate.

The Tory leader [Tim Hudak] not only ruled out any coalition between himself and the Liberals’ Kathleen Wynne or the NDP’s Andrea Horwath, but railed against the notion of those two relatively progressive parties teaming up themselves. It would, he claimed, be cheating — breaking the rules.

“I think that’s cheating voters, and I think that it’s all about Kathleen Wynne trying to keep her job instead of doing the right thing,” Hudak said.

Why can’t left-leaning parties do the left thing?

Taking a page from Stephen Harper, our noted prime ministerial constitutional contortionist and distortionist who famously denounced coalitions in 2008, Hudak is now demonizing them in advance. He is echoing Harper’s cynically anti-democratic notions, which whip up public distrust of our parliamentary traditions.

Hudak should have a word with the U.K.’s Tory premier, David Cameron, who formed a post-election coalition with deputy premier Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats. Or with Australia’s right-wing Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who governs thanks to a formal coalition with the National Party.

Ontario’s Liberals and New Democrats inked a formal accord in the wake of the 1985 election to oust the Tories (who held a plurality of seats). These are parliamentary precedents, not deceptions, yet Hudak is crying foul in advance.