Flogging a Dead Horse Named 'Coalition'

On betting on parliamentary dysfunction, because at least that will give us all something to cheer about on May 2.

The election has become an ouroboros of procedural inanity, with talk of a coalition once again dominating discourse after Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said he's open to governing with the support of other parties. For the gamblers out there, Andrew Coyne at Maclean's provides a handy (and colour-coded!) breakdown of each post-election scenario. “On current form, we might well elect a Parliament that looked a whole lot like the last one. But just because we get the same result doesn’t mean we get the same result,” says Coyne. Odds of a Tory majority are one in four; a Tory minority is two in three; and there's less than a 50 per cent chance of a Tory minority being replaced by Liberals. Or, as Coyne sums it up: “There’s an almost one in two chance of all hell breaking loose.”

Craig McInnes of the Vancouver Sun sarcastically pins the blame for all this renewed coalition yammering on Peter Mansbridge's interview with Ignatieff, where he revealed he shockingly wants to be prime minister and “he's willing to follow the Constitution and parliamentary tradition to do so. Indeed, he is so keen to govern that he is willing to seek the support of other parties.” McInnes finds irony in Conservative Leader Stephen Harper's howling about a “coalition of losers," given that his five years as prime minister have been dependent upon those “loser” parties' support in confidence votes.

Apprehension about a coalition is understandable, admits Graham Thomson of the Edmonton Journal, but only because Canadians are largely ignorant of political institutions. “I'm upset with my colleagues in the media, with journalism professors, with teachers in general and with anyone responsible for informing Canadians how our system of parliamentary democracy works,” Thomson writes in a memorable screed. Harper's “cynical” attachment to the coalition issue is simply playing on the naivete of voters – and the media, "because it has three of the ingredients of a good campaign story for journalists on the run: simple, dramatic, and divisive.” That, and it's just about the only subject the Conservative leader has deigned to speak about at any length for the last four weeks.

Related Video: Coalitions Are Not the Only Option