King-Byng spring?
Suppose the Tories contrive to lose a confidence vote. Does an election follow? Not necessarily. (I suspect we may be hearing more of this...)
April 3, 2007
4/03/2007
related
Bookmarks
Keep bookmarked posts here.
Previous Posts 
- Welcome, Tory partisans!
- When a politician says "sincerely"
- Biofools
- Meet the new corporate welfare, same as the old co...
- Size matters more
- Coyne takes on Layton in Toronto-Danforth
- Revolution très tranquille
- No, apparently they didn't
31 Comments
Dude, he's effectively a majority Prime Minister. Once he got past the inconvenience of his first non-confidence vote, he transformed himself into a de facto majority. That's the constitutional/Parliamentary/whatever convention.
He doesn't need to be "defeated" in the House. He merely needs to walk across Sussex and tell whatsername to dissolve the House and call an election.
That doesn't address the public relations obligations he will face, admittedly. But this notion that the House matters in respect of his fate is specious.
Best
W
I agree with the dude who posted the first comment.
It won't stop 120 dudes who'll call themselves "Constitutional experts" form agreeing with Mr. Mendes say that Harper can't call an election. That those 120 dudes will sign an open letter to the Globe and Mail or The Toronto Star is a certainty should the next poll show the Conservatives at 40 or more and the Liberals in the mid-20's or less.
urgh! Andrew quotes a Star article! from 2 weeks ago!
but anyway. as a robotic Conservative hack i don't necessarily see anything bad about holding off on elections until 2009. but i'm sure if we're suddenly bombed by a surge of Liberal-friendly poll fluctuations the Star would be clamoring for an election. King-Byng my ass.
at this point i believe that this kind of Liberal swashbuckling is more likely to be the cause of an election than Conservative opportunism, although i ultimately won't put Harper past such things.
I'm sure the PM will be persuaded by the Librano's pet constitutional prof's finger wagging. No, no, no Mr. Harper, an election is too costly, implement that 10,000,000,000 Kyoto credit scam instead. this guy is pathetic, although not nearly as pathetic as Ralph Goodale on his knees begging Peter Van Loan to put the fixed dates bill into law.....that was truly disgusting.
Warren,
He can walk across and tell whatshername anything she likes -- and she can tell him to go to Hell. It's the GG who calls elections, not the PM.
Andrew,
This should prove a useful video refresher for you on how a Prime Minister deals with the likes of Mme. Jean.
This seems a little contrived. For example, did Schreyer ask Trudeau if he could form a government following the defeat of the Clark government at the 9 month mark?
More interestingly, per the professor, the GG would have to ascertain whether alternative governments "can be formed that can keep the confidence of the House of Commons". The only option for this, barring some kind of Conservative-Liberal fusion, would be for the Liberals to govern with the consent of the Bloc Quebecois. Libs + NDP wouldn't cut it. So the Bloc would elevate Mr. Beef Vindaloo (or so I am to believe from AC's earlier comments) to the Prime Ministership?
Fat chance. And by that, I clearly mean "Obese chance" or "Massively overweight chance". It's self-evident.
I've pondered this one myself a little bit. I'm no constitutional expert but I believe Stéphane Dion by convention would pretty much have to refuse the Governor General's request, if she were to make it. While it's a sham a lot of the time, we still live in a democracy.
I probably shouldn't use the word convention, but perhaps the political reality would force Dion to refuse to form a government without an election. I believe Harper said he would have refused had Martin been denied dissolution by Clarkson. But that's a what-if, not a precedent or convention.
Personally, it has boggled my mind why Harper doesn't act like he has a majority. They say that it caused Martin and Clark to fall. But seriously, people voted for change. They aren't going to go sissy on him for actually being conservative. My guess is that if Harper keeps governing like a coalition, he is doomed.
That said, the last Conservative budget was a big failure. The only thing I can think of, of why it was so bad, is that they are saving "the good ideas" until the election campaign.
I can't see this happening since Harper's been in power for over a year. Sure, if he'd tried this 4 months into his reign, the GG should refuse him or ask the opp leader to form government but not at this point.
When a PM with a majority of seats in the House of Commons who is horribly unpopular, he generally calls an election in the last year of his mandate and more often than not, he's routed by the Official Opposition who then form a new majority government under their leader. This is the "throw the bums out" model of parliamentary democracy. (Read Brian Mulroney)
Under this model, he generally retires as leader of his party while the party goes off into the wilderness to find itself.
When a PM with a majority of seats in the House of Commons who is riding high in he polls calls an election, he'll do it before the fifth year of his mandate and the writ will drop at the precise moment when polling data tells him that it would be the most politically advantageous moment to do so. This often occurs in the fourth year of his mandate and in some cases, it can happen just slightly shy of the three year mark. (Read Jean Chretien)
Under this model, there's an assumption that he'll face the all powerful "wrath of the electorate" who presumably have the wherewithall to punish him for calling an early election and for purely strategic reasons that have nothing at all to do with seeking a new mandate and everything to do with maintaining a tight grip on power.
Harper's minority still has the confidence of the house, so he's seen as tinkering with our democracy by trying to create the losing conditions necessary to force a vote of no confidence. Political pundits invoke the all powerful image of an angry electorate who will punish him for engineering his defeat to take advantage of good polling numbers and the Toronto Star will foam at the mouth and say that he's playing with the fabric of our democracy.
I disagree.
I don't see how engineering a defeat in a minority parliament is any less despicable or dangerous than a Prime Minister with a majority who calls an election at the most opportune moment, namely, when their polling numbers show they can win another majority.
Let's stop arguing about the wrongness of what Harper is doing. It's no more wrong than what happens in this country under successive majority governments at the federal and provincial level - Prime Minister or Premier calls an election at the moment they can reap some kind of political benefit from high polling numbers, so lets stop kidding ourselves.
If anything, this points to a need for fixed election dates and if Harper has made one mistake, it's that he tabled a fixed election bill too damned early in his mandate. If we do have an election, that bill is, in my view, a big nasty club the opposition can clobber the living crap out of him with. Why? Because it shows that he's disingenuous and opportunistic. (Not that other PM's haven't been disingenuous or opportunistic, they just weren't stupid enough to table a bill for fixed election dates -- this one was.)
At the end of the day, Canadians still come out and vote (not necessarily in record numbers) regardless of the circumstances that caused an election to happen in the first place and to my knowledge, they've never punished an incumbent PM for calling an unnecessary election by replacing the party in power with the official opposition. The party in power might lose a few seats, as happened with Ralph Klein's election about nothing in particular a couple of years ago, but mass voter wrath? Not bloody likely.
Sorry Sean, fixed election dates are a good idea no matter how you slice it. If Harper gets defeated, he'll have to blame the opposition for causing the election in any case so it will be a non-issue.
Now wait just a minute here! I thought just a thread or two ago we were discussing the issue of civil discourse in matters politic, and now you are suggesting, Andrew, that Her Majesty's Governor General of Canada should tell Her Majesty's Prime Minister of Canada to go to hell? I can understand Warren suggesting such a thing; he thinks Punk Rock is somehow related to music ;-) But if you want unilateral disarmament of political rhetoric, Andrew, as you recently claimed, shouldn't you learn the rules thereto first? It gives one pause to wonder.
So lets see,
the Libs can do ads such as "Girl Rocking in Fetal Position", "Gun in your Face", "Aircraft Carriers", "Soldiers in our Streets", "Harper will outlaw Abortion", "Harper is Funded by Right Wing Radicals" and he should make negative ads about Dion,
Chretien can pull the pin mid majority, but
Harper has to endure wacky 60 day Kyoto solution bills, having his environment leg completely rewritten ect. and simply cannot seek a majority mandate from the people? Well not if we want to let Dion try and fix the train wreck while these games are played in parliament.
Hey, maybe if we can tie his other hand behind his back, and maybe his legs too,
we can get Dion back into power,
and get back on that Trudeau vision track,
eh Andrew?
Upon rereading my last comment I realize I've been unfair to Punk Rock in my attempt to nerf-bat Warren upside the head ;-) My apologies. To be fair, please allow me note to that I was not including Ms. Nina Hagen, as illustrated here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CST7XOxw4Dk
It could be that there are interesting ways in which musical techniques, genres, & fashions compare with politics, or it could just be that it's getting late and I should stop writing, but when it comes to politics you may wish to compare the above video to these two:
Grace Jones - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj4xWuM86GE
J. S. Bach - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd_oIFy1mxM
Its funny how some only view things as how they would look bad on Harper.
Imagine the public's reaction if Dion, polling in the low 20's were to seize power after a Liberal appointed GG ignores convention and tells Harper (who at that point could be polling into the mid forties) to sod off,
regains power for the Libs?
Andrew's joined the Star to play full court defense for Dion.
Dion's polling in the low 20's,
but Andrew's trying to think of ways for Dion to get into power without an election.
Rock
Bottom.
This all really rides upon whether you can envision Duceppe and Dion supporting each other on a confidence measure. Personally, I think the odds of that are slim, so this is really a non-issue.
But the constitutional basis for the argument is sound and as a card-carrying Party member, I'm sickened by the over-the-top rhetoric of some commenters that seem appalled by the notion that not everything is stacked in our favour
Ace: I agree that fixed election dates are a good thing. I suspect that when Harper tabled the bill it was at a time when he wasn't on the cusp of a majority according to public opinion polls. However, I think that voters still have lingering suspicions about Harper's so-called "hidden agenda" and it's because of these suspicions that I believe voters aren't going to look fondly on the guy if he engineers his defeat before his fixed election dates legislation becomes law. Of course he will blame the opposition for causing the election, but I'm pretty sure that voters can see right through that argument.
Then again, if an election happens, that bill is just one of many clubs the Liberals will use to clobber Harper and Harper still has an ace up his sleeve. (No Pun Intended). It's called "Stephane Dion is a weak leader and do I really want this guy to be Prime Minister of Canada?" Don't get me wrong, I like Stephane Dion, I just think he's the wrong guy to lead the federal Liberals and I think a lot of voters are having trouble envisioning him as our national leader.
I have always maintained that Stephen Harper's biggest asset is that he's Stephen Harper. It's also his biggest liability. While he displays political shrewdness and he's an exceptionally strong leader who says precisely what he means, he's also got this pettiness about him, which is a very unattractive quality. The least attractive quality about the guy is that he covets power and he (to me at least) gives the appearance of someone who wants to obtain power just a bit too much for my liking.
If I was Dion I wouldn't be worried about the Tory ad so much as Rick Mercer's "rant" last night.
The Bloc has stated many many times that they can not be part of the government as their mission is to destroy the government and leave the country.
So that rules out the Lib+Bloc+ NDP strategy.
Lib+NDP doesn't have enough seats.
So there is no viable alternative for governance with the current parliament.
I find it amusing how all the pundits and journalists are attempting to call Harper a liar and insisting that he wants an election, when in all probability Harper (as usual) is about 4 moves ahead of everyone else and planning his 5th move.
He can simply continue governing and wait.
Wait for the Liberals to knife Dion in the back and try to get a new leader installed (much much easier if they lose an election)
Wait for Duceppe to possibly jump to provincial politics.
Just compare the last two minorities, how much more effective has Harper been than Martin was? Both were in approximately the same situations.
If anything, the current situation allows Harper to ram through more legislation and defy the opposition members to vote it down.
Davide
"He can walk across and tell whatshername anything she likes -- and she can tell him to go to Hell. It's the GG who calls elections, not the PM."
Wouldn't that be something? An unelected, unaccountable Liberal appointee over-ruling the elected Conservative Prime Minister.
I also doubt that she would deny the request. Harper can simply say that he's implemented all of his platform that he can foresee getting through the House and needs to get the people to approve a new platform. Given how no one seems to know exactly where they're going policy-wise, an election may be a good idea.
Coyne's concept might work if Dion puts in a no-confidence motion himself, and holds a joint conference with Layton and Duceppe stating that he can govern for a year.
In that instance, the GG might be obligated to offer him a chance to test the House.
However, why would Dion want to be PM this way, and spend a year being hostage to the whims of Duceppe and Layton? How could he possibly govern?
If the PM asks for an election, the GG will say YES. Anything else would be just too messy.
Canadians have historically rejected coronated PM's, I can imagine the much more negative reaction to someone becoming PM without Canadians being allowed to vote.
It won't happen.
Mr. Coyne, you are teetering on the edge of the fence between the reasonable journalists and the unreasonable. I know you hated the budget but none the less I look forward to you returning to the reasonable side, which you've been on for so much of your career.
Such a scenario will never happen. Yes, the GG has the reserve powers. But it's the Crown's general policy of non-interference in the workings of responsible government that would quell any such inclings.
It's been over a year since the last election. Also, from that 1925 election cited, the Conservatives of Arthur Meighen had won significantly more seats and more votes than King's Liberals, so it was pretty much guaranteed that Byng would look to install another government. That all he got was considerable grief for doing this, when ALL the factors were totally in his favour, means that it's unlikely to be repeated.
And if by some miracle it were, the opposition would simply be slicing their own necks. I would have to assume that a Lib-NDP coalition gov't would have to be formed, and let's just say, good luck with that.
Even in the Whitlam dismissal case in Australia, the new PM was only installed so as to give the advice for dissolution to the GG that Whitlam patentedly refused to do.
The time since the last election is KEY. It's been just over 14 months. It's past the year mark.
As with any democracy, the mood of the electorate will change a lot over the course of a year.
To then ask a GG to form a new government, out of a House not representative of the current prevailing mood of the electorate, but of the electorate 14 months AGO, is the height of folly. Any such government would be considerably lacking in legitimacy, and that's a basic requirement for any government to function adequately.
Nope, the only solution for a GG in the current situation is to order new elections, to get a snapshot of the electorate's current mood, from which to install a government with inherent legitimacy.
Yes all of these things are possible. Mme. Jean can refuse the advice of her Prime Minister...fully wihtin her rights to do so....I think the most radical was Ed Schreyer thinking of calling an election over patriation if no deal was cut.....I think.....
Anyway the powers are there, just like the the notwithstanding clause and the reserve provincial legislation clause....and the appoint extra senators in an emergency clause.
Rarely used but still there.
Responsible governement says that the monarch takes should follow the advice of the Prime Mininster...clearly unless there is an extroidinary circumstance.
The only time I would see this as being legitimate would have been in the case of a referendum loss in 1995.
In that case I think the government would have lost confidence but rather than call an election there would have been a reordereing of the house with Manning going into the PM position.
Thats the only circumstance I can see the GG stepping in and saying that for the moment an election is not required...for the moment.
This other stuff, honestly if Harper asks for an election, defeat or no defeat he would be granted one....expensive elections, goodness why do we always hear that....cost of living in a democracy....its like saying accountants are expensive for a public business, but they are a requirement for transparency, trust and functioning.
She has the right, per AC's comment but practicalities are on Warren's side, more artfully put perhaps, but true nonetheless.
Andrew, are you saying Mme. Jean would refuse an election? Is justified in refusing or just that she has the legal right to do so?
Yes all of these things are possible. Mme. Jean can refuse the advice of her Prime Minister...fully wihtin her rights to do so....I think the most radical was Ed Schreyer thinking of calling an election over patriation if no deal was cut.....I think.....
Anyway the powers are there, just like the the notwithstanding clause and the reserve provincial legislation clause....and the appoint extra senators in an emergency clause.
Rarely used but still there.
Responsible governement says that the monarch takes should follow the advice of the Prime Mininster...clearly unless there is an extroidinary circumstance.
The only time I would see this as being legitimate would have been in the case of a referendum loss in 1995.
In that case I think the government would have lost confidence but rather than call an election there would have been a reordereing of the house with Manning going into the PM position.
Thats the only circumstance I can see the GG stepping in and saying that for the moment an election is not required...for the moment.
This other stuff, honestly if Harper asks for an election, defeat or no defeat he would be granted one....expensive elections, goodness why do we always hear that....cost of living in a democracy....its like saying accountants are expensive for a public business, but they are a requirement for transparency, trust and functioning.
She has the right, per AC's comment but practicalities are on Warren's side, more artfully put perhaps, but true nonetheless.
Andrew, are you saying Mme. Jean would refuse an election? Is justified in refusing or just that she has the legal right to do so?
Well this is easy enough.
CPC voters want a majority, NDP voters want a majority and of course the liberals want a majority. Unless these voters aren't Canadian, I fail to see how the Canadian People (I'm assuming People still is a plural for Person) "want" a minority govt.
This is just more wishy-washy, liberal democratic nonsense. Of course we'll be hearing all about it.
What we won't hear, is that once there is minority govt established, the various influential organizations need only to convince swing voters to stick to their guns and vote for the same party they did last time.
The Star is suggesting that a.) Canadians can control the popular will and vote as a singular entity b.) this is desirable
A very seductive proposal for swing-voters who are publicly vaunted as sober citizens and secretly reviled for their inability to make a any decision within a fortnight.
Now, I'm not averse to minority govt's. obviously they can work. But the idea that a nation can collectively vote for minority government as a matter of course, is false.
However, that something is false doesn't preclude well-intentioned people from bringing one forward as virtue. It used to be that you only needed a percentage of the popular vote to form a govt., this system requires a small fraction of that.
P.S. Andrew, the new form is nice and loose, I like.
MC5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p759HunDnoM
Eric Burdon & War
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv_WLrhf7P0
Blow your horn, baby!