Nothing undemocratic about coalition government: Pilon

University of Victoria political scientist Dennis Pilon on the kerfuffle in Ottawa:

We may be in for an interesting week re the challenge the Harper's minority government from a potential governing bloc made up of the opposition parties. I thought I'd send you a quick note as already the air seems full of misinformation or distortion. Specifically, I would like to address Conservative claims that:

• Harper and his team were 'elected' last month to govern;
• There is something undemocratic about the opposition parties voting down the Conservative government and installing a new one.

Neither of these claims can be sustained, given what we know about Canadian constitutional and electoral practice.

First, Harper and his team were not 'elected' by the public to govern. Legally, Canadian voters elected individual MPs from 308 ridings. They are not given the opportunity to elect a government directly. We know that many vote on the basis of party label and assume that their party will be the government if they win a majority of seats but legally the process of government formation is the product of winning votes confidence in the House of Comons and negotiations with the Head of State, the Governor General.

As it happened the Conservative party under Harper did not win a majority of seats in the election. But as no other single party did either, Harper was not asked for his resignation by the Governor General. However, the absence of such a request hinges on his ability to avoid losing a vote of confidence in the House of Commons. If he loses such a vote, the Governor General can either call a new election or ask the Leader of the Official Opposition to attempt to form a government.

Which leads me to my second point, there is nothing undemocratic about the current opposition parties attempting to negotiate a possible governing coalition to replace Harper's minority government. In fact, they are behaving exactly as our constitutional inheritance suggests they should. Indeed, it would be irresponsible and possibly unconstitutional for the Governor General not to at least give the opposition a chance to form a government, given that there was an election so recently and given that the current minority government did not decisively improve their performance (Harper's Conservatives gained just 1% in the popular vote to capture 38% of the total).

The most basic fact of a minority government is the Prime Minister and his/her party must get opposition support to pass bills. Harper appears to have lost that support. If this turns out to be the case in the coming week (ie he loses a vote of confidence) Canadians deserve to know if someone else can do a better job before we go the expense of another multi-million dollar election.

Dr. Dennis Pilon