Spring election? There's one way out

Let’s look at things from the Opposition’s perspective. On present trends, all three parties stand to lose if an election were called this spring. Sorry, did I say “lose”? I mean, are facing something approaching annihilation....

The Liberals are looking at polling numbers they have never seen in their history (one poll had them at 22%, though that was probably an outlier). Their leader, Stephane Dion, now trails Stephen Harper in leadership surveys by a two-to-one margin. The party is badly divided, its finances are weak, and fewer than one in five of its candidates has been nominated.

The Bloc is, if possible, in even worse shape. Even before the recent provincial election, their support among Quebecers had fallen into the low 30s, their worst showing ever. Given the historic trouncing their Parti Quebecois cousins have just endured, and the sense that Quebecers have turned the page, at least for the near future, on separation, the Bloc is confronting, not just a significant loss of seats, but an existential crisis.

The NDP, meanwhile, though above its historic low-water mark, is leaking support left and right, squeezed between the fast-rising Greens and the leftward-lurching Liberals. Like the other parties, it, too, would do anything to avoid an election just now.

Anything? Well, maybe not quite. If an election comes, it is almost certain to be via the government’s defeat in the House. (I say “almost certain,” in view of the Conservatives’ own bill -- passed by both Houses, though not yet proclaimed -- mandating fixed election dates, starting in 2009. So simply calling an election in the traditional way would seem out of the question. But given Mr. Harper’s recent about-faces, nothing’s impossible.)

But to prevent the government from losing in the House would require the Opposition to vote with it, or at least to abstain from voting against it. And given the highly public, sharply defined stands all three parties have taken on a number of issues lately -- Kyoto and the Anti-Terrorism Act, in particular -- this presents the opposition with a Hobson’s choice: vote against the government, and bring on an election they would rather avoid, or vote with it, and make utter fools of themselves. And not just once, but again and again and again, on any issue Mr. Harper chooses to make a confidence vote.

But are those the only two options? The assumption is that defeat on a confidence vote would automatically precipitate an election -- the third inside of three years. But in fact it would not. It would mean the fall of the Harper government. But it is up to the Governor General what happens next. Rather than dissolve Parliament and call new elections, she has the prerogative to ascertain, if Mr. Harper cannot command the confidence of the House, whether anyone else can. Indeed, it is arguable she has the constitutional obligation to do so.

Certainly she is under no obligation to accept Mr. Harper’s demand for dissolution. (She may be bound to accept her first minister’s advice in most things, but not in her choice of first ministers.) If she has evidence that someone else can lead a stable government, it is open to her to call upon him, and spare the country the expense and uncertainty of another election.

Is there such evidence? Yes. Indeed, one might even say the opposition is already governing the country in some ways. The three parties have voted together to defeat the government on a number of important issues; it is only because these were not confidence motions that the Tories remain in office. In doing so they have shown impressive solidarity, both within and across party lines. Should they wish, they could make a compelling case to Her Excellency.

Would they? I know what you’re thinking: King-Byng. But Byng was right, in law, most constitutional scholars agree. And though King was able to make Byng’s refusal of dissolution into a winning issue at the subsequent election, special historical factors were at work, not present today. First, Arthur Meighen’s government fell after a few short days, for wonderfully arcane reasons that need not detain us: had he been able to hold on for any period of time, King would have lost his moment. Second, Michaelle Jean is not a haughty colonial overlord, as King successfully portrayed Byng, but a wildly popular viceroy -- and as a black, an immigrant, a francophone, and a woman, untouchable four times over.

Still: would they? Would the Bloc agree to support the Liberals? Put yourself in their shoes: they have to do something dramatic. Their whole raison d’etre -- to prepare the ground for sovereignty -- has just disappeared. If they are to counter Tory arguments that they have no purpose in Ottawa, they had better find one; as members of a coalition government, in fact if not in name, they would at last be in a position to “deliver the goods.” There have been stranger virages before -- Mr. Harper’s “nation” resolution among them. And if they have to choose someone to prop up in power, who are they going to choose: Mr. Harper’s Tories, their most dangerous enemies, or the Liberals -- and Stephane Dion?

Would the Liberals accept their support? Again, what choice do they have? It would be hard to accuse Mr. Dion, the “extreme centralizer” of recent Tory propaganda, of being in bed with the separatists, especially if they were no longer quite separatists. As for the NDP, they tried propping up the Tories, and look where it got them.

I’m not saying this will happen. I’m not saying it should. But if I were the opposition, I’d be inclined to say: Have you got a better idea?