Coalition Talk Intensifies in Ottawa

The talk of a coalition government between the Liberals and NDP supported by the BQ is intensifying in Ottawa, with reports now surfacing of second-stage talks taking place, including between the opposition leaders personally. There looks to be one big bump on the road to a centre-left coalition government: the Dion factor. The NDP and BQ have signalled that they will not support a government that installs Dion as leader. This has led to an effort within the LPC to remove Dion as a leader early, and install an interim leader to see the LPC through until the May election. The problem is whether the country is prepared to accept an interim Prime Minister.

I see one way to resolve this problem, though it is admittedly massively unlikely to happen: have Jack Layton lead the government and become Prime Minister. He is a leader solidly in control of his party, and he isn't going anywhere. He has high positive ratings with the Canadian public, and is generally well respected. This is, of course, unlikely to happen because the Liberals know that letting Layton be Prime Minister is almost as deadly to their long-term interests as allowing the end of the per-vote subsidy. It would bestow huge legitimacy on the NDP federally, and cut further into the remaining base of left-liberals in the Liberal Party of Canada.

At the very least, the NDP needs to get Cabinet positions out of this deal, and Jack Layton needs to become Deputy Prime Minister and hold an important Cabinet portfolio (Finance would be good but is unlikely, Industry might be more reasonable). This is an opportunity to give a voice to the 62% of voters who did not choose the Conservative Party of Canada to govern this country. This is also a chance to prove that Parliamentary but not electoral coalitions can work as well, which is a key part of a proportional representation system.

As Dr. Dawg put it on his blog, "Form a coalition. That is all." As cliche as it is to say, the Chinese character for "crisis" incorporates both "danger" and "opportunity." And opportunity is knocking.

Update: CBC is running a poll on the cuts to democracy, which you can find here. It's currently being freeped (800+ anti-democracy votes in the past two hours, when it was running even just before then). I encourage everyone who reads this and cares about the issues to counter-freep it.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 53