Coalition push forces Harper onto the defensive

Momentum – including open online letter – grows to replace minority Conservatives.

OTTAWA , November 28, 2008: Momentum is growing for the replacement of the Harper Conservatives by a Liberal-NDP coalition. Two months ago, when the idea was first broached in StraightGoods.ca, almost all parties dismissed the idea. Now, a non-confidence vote could see the government fall as soon as Monday night.

All day today, negotiations took place between the opposition parties, with former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and former NDP leader Ed Broadbent taking lead roles. Then tonight, Harper took the extraordinary move of making a special address to Parliament and the nation. In it, he postponed a confidence vote on the economic statement finance minister Jim Flaherty made yesterday to a week Monday instead of Monday. And he attacked the opposition as "undemocratic" for wanting to replace his government without an election.

"While we have been working on the economy, the Opposition has been working on a backroom deal to overturn the results of the last election without seeking the consent of voters," Harper said. "They want to take power, not earn it." Ironically, the bulk of reaction to the economic statement was over widespread perceptions that the government's statement showed a lack of work on the economic crisis.

Harper has difficulty making the kind of compromises demanded of a minority prime minister. Instead of bringing Canadians together to fight the crisis, Flaherty's statement Thursday was viciously partisan. In it, he trashed longtime political targets like pay equity and labour rights in the public service, as well as political finance rules put in place to level the playing field.

Open online letter to Dion and Layton calls for a coalition government
As political leaders huddle in Ottawa, activists across Canada are becoming involved in the push for a coalition. Canadians everywhere are being urged to sign an online open letter calling for coalition that began with a small group pulled together by the Rideau Institute. The letter urges the Liberal's Stéphane Dion and the NDP's Jack Layton to "set aside all partisan considerations in favour of decisive action to help Canadians who are suffering and whose livelihoods are in jeopardy."

The letter argues it was bitterly ironic for Stephen Harper to promise to work cooperatively with opposition parties, and then deliver such a partisan attack with no plan to fight the economic crisis and the stated intention not to run deficits, in the face of what other G20 countries are doing.

"Instead his Conservative government is using the crisis to attack the democratic process, violate the rights of public servants to bargain collectively and end pay equity," states the letter. "Canada now stands alone as the only government in the western world without a coherent economic stimulus plan. The Harper government talks of balancing the budget by selling off assets and restraining spending, the exact opposite of the stimulus response that virtually all economists and many others are arguing is necessary."

The original signers of the letter are:
Paul Moist, National President, Canadian Union of Public Employees
Ken Lewenza, President, Canadian Auto Workers
Dave Coles, President, Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada
Denis Lemelin, National President, Canadian Union of Postal Workers
Steven Staples, President, Rideau Institute
Bruce Campbell, Executive Director, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
John Urquhart, Executive Director, Council of Canadians
Mel Watkins, Emeritus Professor of Economics, University of Toronto
Peggy Mason, Former UN Ambassador for Disarmament

Harper Conservative vs. Public Values Frame
  Ideology and partisanship / Cooperation, coalition
  Backroom deals / Democracy
  Entitlements / Level the playing field

Links and sources
  Smartvote2008: Open online letter
  "Don't think of an elephant" leader, by Ish Theilheimer, StraightGoods.ca, September 10, 2008
  How Jack Layton Can Become Prime Minister, by Clyde Sanger, StraightGoods.ca, September 17, 2008
  Canadians for a Progressive Coalition

Posted: November 28, 2008

Harper Index (HarperIndex.ca) is a project of the Golden Lake Institute and the online publication StraightGoods.ca