Coalition cold comfort

Editorial

Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean's agreement last week to prorogue Parliament, thereby allowing Prime Minister Stephen Harper to avoid a confidence vote Monday, probably deadheaded what could have been one of the most dramatic historical moments in Canadian constitutional history.

Had Jean not assented to Harper's request, she would have faced the sort of notoriety that is irrevocably linked to one of her predecessors, Lord Byng of Vimy, whose 1926 refusal to dissolve Parliament and call an election as requested by Prime Minister W.L. Mackenzie-King resulted in a neutering of the role of governors general not only in Canada but across the British Empire (later, the Commonwealth).

Had Jean instead allowed the confidence vote to go ahead, Canadians may have been adapting today to the idea of a Liberal-New Democratic party coalition with Bloc Quebecois support. Instead, in one of those fallen-cake moments when a dramatic scheme goes horribly awry, Liberal leader Stephane Dion instead resigned and his heir apparent seems less likely to move ahead on the coalition idea.

This had many Canadians heaving a sigh of relief. Whether it was the idea of a separatist party propping up the federal government or the vision of the notoriously oppositional NDP sitting on the government side of the house or simply the idea of the Liberal party, so recently and so roundly rejected by voters, leading a government, there was something in the coalition plan to disgust everyone.

In the six-week reprieve handed Harper, we can expect to see the unraveling of the coalition idea. For many Jewish voters, this will be a reassuring development. There was some trepidation clearly expressed during the federal election over the commitment the Liberal party has shown to the only democracy in the Middle East. The willingness of the Liberals to coalesce with – even to sit in cabinet with – MPs who refer to Jewish self-determination as Al-Naqba, the Catastrophe, and whose statements on Israel reflect warped perspectives, should call into question the Liberals' larger viability as a national party. That is a challenge the new Liberal leader will need to address.

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