The Inroads listserv was active during the campaign that began with the defeat of the government on March 25 and culminated in the May 2 election, commenting on everything from Stephen Harper’s attempt to demonize a hypothetical coalition government at the outset to the NDP surge at the end. The following is a selection taken from different points in the campaign.

Demonizing coalitions

From: Gareth Morley | March 26

Ignatieff’s inglorious political career will be over soon. However, by ruling out a coalition, he will have the legacy of finally imposing a rule that only the party with a plurality of seats can form a government. This rule makes no sense in a system based on responsible government, but whatever.

Hopefully, the Tories’ inevitable victory will lead to an effecive unite-the-left movement, although so far the obvious logic has not prevailed over the power of path dependence.

Gareth Morley is a litigator with the British Columbia Ministry of Attorney General. All opinions expressed are his alone, and do not reflect the views of the Ministry of Attorney General.

From: Henry Milner | March 26

While I have no desire whatsoever to see the Harper Tories returned to power, I think Harper is largely correct in his argument that in our system the party that wins the most seats has the reasonable expectation that it be given a chance to govern. (Note that in the U.K. the Lib Dems formed a coalition with the Tories who came first rather than with their more natural allies, Labour.)

Obviously this does not apply if two or more parties commit themselves before the vote to trying to form a coalition. The Catch-22 is that they do not want to do this since, under our system, it is likely to cost them seats (as a result, in our case, of the defection of a relatively small but strategically significant number of centrist Liberal voters).

Of course, if Harper is successful in running against the threat of a coalition despite Ignatieff’s disclaimers, then perhaps the Liberals will realize that they will pay the cost in lost votes of without any of the benefits of actually forming a coalition and down the road in a few weeks begin to discuss the possibility with the NDP, and announce that they will attempt to together form a government if they combined have more seats than the Tories. In that context the “threat” of the Bloc dissipates since a Lib-Lab minority coaition would have the same relationship with the Bloc as would have a minority Conservative government.

Henry Milner is co-publisher of Inroads.

From: Wilfred Day | March 26

That’s the opposite of what Ignatieff said. He said, “Whoever leads the party that wins the most seats on election day should be called on to form the government. If that is the Liberal Party, then I will be required to rapidly seek the confidence of the newly elected Parliament. If our government cannot win the support of the House, then Mr. Harper will be called on to form a government and face the same challenge.”

Corollary: If the Conservative Party wins the most seats on election day it should be called on to form the government and be required to rapidly seek the confidence of the newly elected Parliament. If it cannot win the support of the House, then Mr. Ignatieff will be called on to form a government and face the same challenge. Quite clear.

Less clear is how Ignatieff would obtain the confidence of the House without a majority. If he was likely to call a snap election, why would anyone defeat Harper? But “the rules that will guide me” (hmm, are these guidelines really rules?) include:

“We will not enter a coalition with other federalist parties. In our system, coalitions are a legitimate constitutional option. However, I believe that issue-by-issue collaboration with other parties is the best way for minority parliaments to function.” If the “best way” is not open, there must logically be other good ways. Issue-by-issue (no coalition) is best; but the stability of a coalition must still be a good option after all.

“We categorically rule out a coalition or formal arrangement with the Bloc Québécois.” (With the NDP we are less categorical.)

Wilfred Day practises law in Port Hope, Ontario.

From: Joe Murray | March 26

I’m not quite so pessimistic as Gareth Morley on coalitions being permanently barred in Canada by Ignatieff’s statement.

Leaders come and go, and it is indeed likely that Ignatieff will lose and be gone. And it is far from clear that the next Liberal leader, or the one after that, will maintain this stand either before or after elections. And who is to say what Ignatieff would do after an election in which the Liberals gained seats and Conservatives lost some? The legitimacy argument might play differently than it did with Dion. Of course, the oft-cited 1985 Ontario example had the Liberals winning the popular vote over the Tories 37.9 to 37.0, though the Tories got 52 seats to the Liberals 48.

Joe Murray is president of JMA Consulting in Toronto.

From: Alastair Sweeny | March 27

What’s not usually noted is that the opposition parties have had a de facto coalition during the life of this Parliament, with, I believe, a majority in all committees. The Bloc will never publicly “join” a coalition as they almost but not quite did with Dion and Layton in 2006.

As Martin and Harper learned, all this non-coalition coalition business is very frustrating to the party with the most seats, called upon to form a government. It requires more negotiation and collegiality than usual to get bills passed.

What the public usually sees is PR, spin and demonization, as in Question Period.

Alastair Sweeny is Vice-President, Development, of Northern Blue Publishing in Ottawa.

From: Harvey Schachter | March 27

I think the only rule that might have been intensified here is the one Kim Campbell alluded to, more broadly, at the start of the 1993 campaign, which I castigated her for at the time as an ivory tower editorialist. We can’t discuss social policy, or coalitions, or very much of substance in elections, because there is no room for grey and her party, or successor party, has gobs of money to turn any white, let alone grey, into black.

The coalition issue right now is hypothetical, but Harper (with the media’s help – after all, they need an issue a day, preferably an emotional one) has made it real.

It really does depend – on the numbers after the election and the lineup of parties.

It seems to me the only rule is that the prime minister goes to the governor general and discusses with him/her what the prime minister thinks should happen. The governor general then decides to take or reject that advice, presumably based on parliamentary precedent but also the lineup of forces in the house and public opinion and probably the percentage of the vote.

The political parties can then make their own political calculation in a minority parliament. The precedent in Ottawa, from long before Gareth’s inglorious Ignatieff, has been to stand off for a while. But not in Ontario where the parties made a different political calculation and the citizenry accepted it, perhaps in part because the “winning” party had not won the majority of the vote.

I remember last time we were in this coalition discussion some people argued there couldn’t be a coalition unless the deal was forged before the election. I wondered where that came from. Subsequently it didn’t happen in Britain, but certainly there it does appear that there was a feeling that the election’s “winner” should be part of the coalition, and the Liberal Democrats, perhaps to their eternal regret, made that deal. Does that bind Britain forever? I doubt it.

As for inglorious Ignatieff, perhaps he’s done like Dion. But my memory has trouble coming up with any really glorious opposition leader – it’s an awful role, and worse if your party is hobbled by lack of money and your adversaries can run a zillion ads without any restrictions between elections, turning white into black. This election is probably about the issue that led to the coalition, party financing, and it’s interesting that it’s not being talked about. The consequences are huge.

But excuse me. I forgot. The economy is in peril, Chicken Little says. We are all in peril. Elections are great time to talk intelligently about economies being in peril, right, and how they can be saved by a steady hand giving tax breaks to volunteer firefighters. (Some of my friends, not best friends, but still friends, are volunteer firefighters. They should be appalled at being treated as Pavlovian dummies, but they won’t be, which is why they aren’t my best friends.)

Harvey Schachter is a freelance journalist living in Battersea, Ontario.

From: Gareth Morley | March 28

I appreciate all the comments and especially Wilfred’s attention to what Ignatieff actually said. I admit I reacted to hastily read news reports.

However, I still think Ignatieff’s response is flawed. If the Liberals come second and want to form a government (and that is the most likely scenario leading to Prime Minister Ignatieff), then he needs to prepare Canadians. There is an inchoate sense that it is unfair for a party that comes second in seats to take power. That isn’t really about coalitions per se. I doubt that there would be the same sense if the Liberals came first and then formed a coalition with the NDP. Maybe they would rather not, and maybe more conservative Liberals would be displeased, but there would be no sense that this would be more unfair than if they govern on their own (possibly the contrary).

Cameron made a similar argument and persuaded Clegg that it would be illegitimate to back Labour (things were made still more complicated by the fact that a working majority would require the Celtic fringe parties too). The Con-Lib coalition has been a disaster for the Lib Dems, and it is highly unlikely that most Lib Dem voters thought they were voting for what they got, but it is consistent with a folk constitutional sense that the party that wins is the party with the plurality of seats. I think there are serious problems with the folk constitutional rule and it completely conflicts with the traditional notion that the appropriate government is the one that can best assure supply. But that doesn’t change the fact that it is a genuinely held belief of a lot of floating voters.

If Ignatieff had more imagination, he’d make an argument along the following lines:

1. If Canadians elect a parliament in which a majority of MPs want a progressive program, then why should they get a right-wing program?

2. I’d prefer that you, the Canadian people, gave the Liberals a majority. But it’s a democracy, so it’s up to you. If you give the Liberals and NDP together a majority or close to it, then I’ll take your orders.

3. I’m a Liberal because I’m a progressive, while being a realist. I agree with the NDP about the ends, but think we have to temper the means. The old differences between the Liberals and NDP have softened. The NDP says the Liberals talk left in opposition, but govern to the right. But the same can be said of NDP provincial governments. Look at my old frenemy, Bob Rae. Experience and fiscal credibility are assets for a progressive coalition.

4. The Liberals will make sure that progressive policies are consistent with economic prosperity and fiscal discipline. Jack Layton may be a great guy, but those things aren’t really what gets him going in life. They are a proud part of the Liberal legacy. Our disagreement with the Conservatives is about ends, not just means.

5. Who is in the cabinet is a detail of interest to professional politicians. What matters is whether Canada will have progressive policies or the (add adjectives) policies of the Harper Tories. On that, we can meet the NDP halfway.

6. I wish people in Quebec wouldn’t vote for the Bloc, but they pay taxes and have a right to vote, so we need to meet them halfway too. No cabinet posts for them.

This argument wouldn’t persuade Conservative partisans, but so what? By raising the issue, he makes a Liberal-NDP alliance from second place a debatable proposition. The current approach is too nuanced. Harper is setting the terms of the debate, in which coalition is bad, and Ignatieff is responding with evasion.

One thing that is frustrating about Ignatieff is that in his former life he seemed capable of communicating complex ideas, but now he seems like a really cautious pol voicing platitudes.

The sad state of the campaign

From: Anthony Westell | April 12

I have been observing elections for half a century and I cannot recall a campaign as corrupt as this one – corrupt in the sense of the use of public money to “buy” targeted ridings and communities. The public is either unaware or indifferent, and I blame that in part on the media. I pay particular attention to the Globe and Mail which often buries election stories inside. Today is typical; the story is obviously the the Auditor General’s report, but on the front we have instead a column by Ibbitson pointing out that Harper is far more trusted than the other leaders. And why is that, I wonder?

Anthony Westell is a retired journalist who covered and commented on federal politics for the Toronto Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star.

From: Gareth Morley | April 12

I live in a swing riding, Esquimalt – Juan de Fuca, and the local campaign vindicates Tony’s point. The Conservative candidate’s main message is that if we vote for him, we’ll get an overpass. It is about at the legal limit of explicitness. When Harper was in Victoria, he was asked about it and replied, “ask your local candidate” – an odd response since you would think such decisions would be made by Public Works or Transport or Treasury Board, not by newly elected backbenchers.

My sense is that such explicit tying of infrastructure improvements to partisan colouration is new – at least since World War II and at the federal level. I stand to be corrected however.

From: Garth Stevenson | April 14

I agree the campaign is distressing. Harper is totally unacceptable. I liked a few of the things he did when he first took office, but his “get tough with crime” agenda, reminiscent of George Wallace and Richard Nixon in 1968, makes him the worst possible choice as far as I’m concerned. On the other hand I can’t warm up to Ignatieff, a man who spent most of his adult life in foreign countries, has no leadership ability or experience that I’m aware of, is running on a vacuous platform and seems to think that being prime minister of Canada would be a fun way to spend his retirement. Layton is perhaps okay (apart from having no chance of displacing either of the major parties), although I still haven’t forgiven him for not allowing his MPs a free vote on same-sex marriage. (I might also add that I live in a very safe Conservative riding, so my vote is almost certainly irrelevant.)

We have had some mediocre, and even poor, prime ministers in the past, but in every election until very recently at least one of the major parties always had a leader who would make a respectable PM, and if he didn’t win his first campaign as leader, he usually won eventually. Today none of the choices seems very good, and I think many Canadians feel the same way about them as I do. Maybe the real question we should be asking is why so few good people are willing to seek political office in present-day Canada.

By coincidence I was recently reading the memoirs of General Rick Hillier, who I think is one of the most impressive Canadians living today. I know he isn’t interested in being a politician but I suspect he would make a pretty good PM. A very un-Canadian suggestion, I know, but why not? Most people now consider that Eisenhower was a good president, and Charles de Gaulle and Kemal Atatürk were two of the greatest statesmen of the twentieth century. The kind of leaders that have been emerging in Canada lately make me think that even the ancient Greek practice of filling offices by drawing lots would be an improvement over what we have.

Garth Stevenson is Professor of Political Science at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario.

The NDP surge in Quebec

From: Philip Resnick | April 22

Why the NDP is surging in Quebec

The current federal election campaign got off to a slow start. For the first three weeks, the only relevant question seemed to be “Would the Conservatives be returned with a majority or minority government?” The question remains relevant, but ever since the leaders’ debates something new has entered the equation. The novelty lies in Jack Layton’s excellent performance in both debates, and the evidence from recent opinion polls that NDP support is surging in Canada as a whole, but more particularly in Quebec. Why might this be?

In the English-language debate, Layton got off the best zinger when he challenged Michael Ignatieff’s poor attendance record in the House of Commons: “If you want to get a promotion, you need to show up at work.” Not bad as political repartee goes, and enough to leave Ignatieff looking stunned as he uttered the familiar mantras about the Liberals being the only serious opposition to the Conservatives and about why a coalition government was something he would simply not entertain. In the French-language debate, Layton’s zinger was aimed at Gilles Duceppe. When the latter trotted out the time-worn argument about the Bloc being the only serious obstacle to Stephen Harper’s government, Layton fired back, “But he’s still there.”

Something unforeseen is happening in la belle province. Layton and the NDP are being helped by a number of things:

There is deep-rooted hostility to the Conservatives and what they represent in all but the most bleu of ridings, concentrated in the areas around Quebec City and Lac Saint-Jean.

• There is equally deep-rooted hostility to the Liberals, associated with the sponsorship scandal and with the hard-line attitude to Quebec nationalism during the Trudeau and Chrétien eras.
• There is fatigue with Gilles Duceppe and the Bloc Québécois. Soft nationalists have come to the conclusion that saying No all the time doesn’t really do all that much for Quebec or lead to its having a meaningful impact on the federal scene. Duceppe has been running an angry campaign, even making silly accusations about Layton being the Conservatives’ best friend.
• Layton’s French is colloquial, and he comes across as the kind of guy people would be comfortable going out with for coffee or beer.
• At the same time, the NDP’s social democratic stance matches the mindset of many in Quebec, making it an acceptable alternative to the Bloc.
• Moreover, the NDP’s position on Quebec, going back to its founding 1961 convention when it recognized the two-nation reality of Canada (Aboriginal national claims were not yet part of the discourse), make it an appealing alternative for non-sovereigntists.
• The NDP has also been enormously helped by the spadework of its one Quebec MP, Thomas Mulcair, a former provincial Liberal cabinet minister, who has provided effective backup to the party leader.
• A number of contributors to online discussions in both La Presse and Le Devoir have also noted, in Layton’s favour, the willingness of the NDP to openly embrace the possibility of a coalition government at the federal level. Quebecers seem less frightened by this prospect than the nervous nellies in the rest of Canada.

As someone who grew up in Quebec and remember going door to door in the early 1960s trying to get Charles Taylor, my professor at McGill, elected under the NDP banner, I know how much of a wasteland Quebec has been for the NDP. It is a major part of the reason the party has never been able to get beyond third-party status federally, or be taken seriously as a potential governing party. To see some of the recent polls suggesting the NDP is actually in first place in Quebec, ahead of the Bloc and the two traditional federal parties, is extraordinary. If the trend holds up and translates into real support for the NDP on May 2, the NDP could find itself with an untold crop of seats in Quebec: 8, 10, 12, 15, 20 – who knows? The prospect could also boost support for the NDP in the rest of Canada, leading to a much strengthened NDP contingent in the next Parliament.

Strong enough to beat out the Liberals as the number two party? Probably not. But strong enough to force a major realignment of the political system, with a diminished Bloc and a more balanced relationship between the NDP and the Liberals. This in turn could bring back the ghost that both Harper and Ignatieff have been trying to exorcise – the prospect of a future coalition government between the Liberals and the NDP. I`m not holding my breath for this to happen the day after the election. But with the likelihood of another minority Parliament, it becomes a possibility in the not indefinite future. Perhaps not with Michael Ignatieff as leader of the Liberal Party. That party could do with a Jack Layton too – someone ordinary Canadians would be comfortable relating to, someone with and a more feet-on-the-ground understanding of what makes this country tick.

Philip Resnick is Professor of Political Science at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and a member of the Inroads editorial board.

Corporate taxes

Corporate taxes emerged as an issue in the campaign, with the opposition parties criticizing the corporate tax cuts planned by the Conservative government. Henry Milner sparked an exchange on the listserv by bringing a petition against the cuts to the attention of the list. The initiator of the petition, representing Canadians for Tax Fairness, remarked that the group’s campaign against the cuts would inevitably succeed, “because good always triumphs over evil ... more or less ... eventually ...”

 From: Alastair Sweeny | April 22

I’m sorry, but what in hell do corporate taxes have to do with good and evil?

Corporate taxes are simply passed on to the consumer through higher prices. They are regressive, not “progressive,” or what used to be called “socialist” (before the PR guys got hold of the word). The net effect of corporate taxes is that poorer people pay a higher percentage of their taxes on goods and services provided by large and small corporations. Yes, many small businesses are also corporations.

If we tax corporations, and another country does not, then Canadian workers – taxpayers – effectively subsidize corporations and taxpayers in the other country.

If you and other socialists want to do anything, why don’t you work to eliminate outrageous tax breaks for corporations that should be able to stand on their own without subsidies? These pork-barrelling tax breaks are paid for by the taxes of workers, and we are all workers, right? Just as we are all Keynesians.

While we’re at it, we should also cut or abolish income taxes and sales taxes, which are also regressive. Not to mention the fact that billions are spent by Canadians on subsidizing tax lawyers and accountants. And is Revenue Canada a “critical public service”?

The only good tax – apart from sin taxes on tobacco and gambling and SUVs – is a GST or VAT, which everybody pays – even black marketeers. Lower-income people can then be reimbursed monthly on a sliding scale on the basis of their income and social needs (number of children, medical costs, higher education costs, etc)

And by the way, the GST is also paid by corporations, which also collect the tax for the government.

Our tax system as it stands is a dog’s breakfast of misguided and malapplied social engineering. Your idea of “tax fairness” will simply contribute to a continuation of this unnecessary unfairness. Most parties, including the NDP, are coming around to this realization.

From: Gareth Morley | April 22

Corporate taxes are the left’s voodoo economics, its free lunch. Corporations are legal fictions, so when you tax them, the actual economic incidence is on real people. But you can tell the public (none of whom are legal fictions) that they can get public services without sacrifice. In fact, of course, demographics mean we will inevitably pay more for less over the next generation or two.

I think the “make the corporations pay” approach actually strengthens the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and its co-thinkers. It accepts that it is impossible to persuade middle Canada that public services are worth paying more for. The NDP has been at the forefront of tax revolt against carbon and value-added taxes – justifying itself with the “make the corporations pay” voodoo.

That’s one reason I’m not as enthusiastic as Philip about any ascendancy of the NDP. I’d like to see a realignment leading to a new centre-left coalition, and I agree that Ignatieff’s willingness to accept Harper’s demonization of this prospect is a failure of leadership. But while nobody wants to tell the public about the difficult choices it is going to have to make to preserve social services, the NDP is probably the worst offender in populist make-believe.

NDP opposition? Government?

From: Garth Stevenson | April 30

Becoming the “official” opposition (an expression of which John Diefenbaker disapproved, but one hallowed by years of Canadian usage) would have enormous psychological benefits for the NDP – and some practical advantages too, such as more research money and more exposure during parliamentary debates. It would finally end the “why waste your vote on a third party?” syndrome and mark a completely new era in Canadian party politics – perhaps the most fundamental change since the achievement of responsible government in 1848. Plus I have no doubt that Jack Layton would make a very effective opposition leader in Parliament – perhaps the most effective since Diefenbaker.

If it happens on Monday, as I believe it will, I think historians will record that the decline and fall of the Liberals began when they made fundamental changes to the constitution without Quebec’s consent in 1981 – 82. That ended the credibility of their claim, on which they traded for almost a century, to be the only party that could build bridges between Quebec and anglophone Canada.

From: Anthony Westell | April 30

The Liberal Party has been in long-term decline, losing first the west and then Quebec. The Chrétien-Martin era was made possible only by the Reform/Conservative divide. The apparent rise in the NDP in this election makes a comparison with with the decline of the British Liberals and the rise of the Labour Party after World War I attractive. But the NDP is not the Labour Party. The Labour Party was a socialist party promising a new world, while the NDP is mildly social democratic, promising just a few adjustments in policy. It is not much different from the Liberal Party. So what explains its sudden popularity? As I see it, this campaign has been mostly about choosing a leader. Policy counts for little. Few find Harper a likeable personality; many dislike him. We tend to forget the Tories set about destroying Ignatieff personally with a blitz of TV advertising even before the campaign began. In retrospect, I don’t think he ever had much of a chance of connecting with voters. That leaves Layton with his seemingly open and cheery appeal.

From: Joe Murray | April 30

Ignatieff has been much too hot for TV in his anger and outrage. He hasn’t connected with voters. I even conjecture that Layton’s debate prep had one important feature for the way the campaign subsequently unfolded. The debate was structured this time to ensure equal time for all leaders – if they didn’t get equal time early on it was given to them later. Layton could thus wait to speak rather than needing to interrupt and speak over top of other leaders. While he did pitch in some of the prepared lines used by all leaders (which were way overdone by Iggy), his overall demeanour managed to have a different tone, and his role a different dynamic. He provided a very pleasant contrast in styles of politics – working to get along and work together for Canadians rather than against other parties up in Ottawa – at both the level of message and messenger, and with credibility on things like offering to work with Harper on the budget.

If those are the surface fluctuations and patterns, Layton benefited from credibility in his positioning because it built on years of demonstrated pragmatic approaches to interparty cooperation as well as policy development.

Gambles the NDP has been making on a Quebec breakthrough since its founding convention have finally paid off. Who knows where we would be now as a country if Charles Taylor had won in one of his elections as the NDP’s candidate against Pierre Trudeau? Imagine if we had continued the long pragmatic tradition of Britain in accommodating differences between peoples (granted, to greater and lesser extents in different times and places) rather than trying to remake all individuals and the nation in the image of a bilingual person like Trudeau? We might have avoided the backlashes out west, the flag burnings in Ontario and the (politically stoked) resentful reactions in Quebec.

While I am like many a Canadan who learned French at one point and am currently sending my kids to partially effective French immersion programs, we are not a country where most citizens are fluent in French and English. Over the long term, Trudeau’s liberal individualistic vision and the Liberal Party’s haughty imposition of a particular form of Canadian nationalism will be seen to have undermined a united Canada and led to the Liberal Party’s decline.

The attempt over the last half-century to assimilate Quebec nationalism into a pan-Canadian nationalism and the bilingual and bicultural status of the English and French into a generalized multiculturalism of all immigrants is over. Its death-knell was support from all federal parties for Harper’s motion to recognize the Quebec nation within a united Canada – basically Taylor’s vision. New forms of this fight across the centuries will arise, but the success of the post-sixties Liberal Party built on the form of the fight that Trudeau provoked is over.

On the positive side of the ledger, we’ve blazed a trail in showing how a separatist movement can choose to take a democratic, nonviolent path, and have most of the body politic accept its legitimacy. Thank the stars our generations squeaked by the historical violence that would surely have attended attempts to prevent Quebec secession by force, or to partition a seceding Quebec as some Liberals proposed. Effective high-stakes realpolitik that helped the No side by engendering fears about secession perhaps. But dangerous in terms of “almost were” scenarios.

I hope Harper doesn’t follow that potential pattern by suborning democracy to retain power if he ends up with a plurality that doesn’t have the confidence of the House.

From: Gareth Morley | May 1

I would argue that the current campaign shows exactly the opposite of what Tony suggests. We are a more ideological country and leadership personality matters less than it used to.

First, we have to explain the dog that didn’t bark. The Conservatives appear to have held on to the 40 per cent they came in with. That share has moved incrementally since the right united. I doubt very much that even 40 per cent of Canadians find Harper’s personality appealing. Rather, there is a solid conservative coalition of religious people, tempermental conservatives, older people, rural people and business interests. In addition, there are voters who vote primarily on the basis of whether they are happy with the incumbents. If times are reasonably good, they don’t want change.

The big volatility is between the Liberals and NDP in English Canada and between the BQ and NDP in Quebec. We don’t yet know if the NDP has really closed the deal. Progressive voters don’t see a huge difference between the parties on the left. That leads to volatility within that group, but not between the left and right camps – something European voters are familiar with.

Right now, everyone is talking about how unappealing Ignatieff’s personality and TV presence are. But of course the reason the Liberals picked him was as a charismatic, TV-savvy replacement for the professorial and incomprehensible Dion. I can remember when everyone thought Paul Martin was a political genius who would be far more appealing than Chrétien. Harper was a wonky loser. Just a month ago, Layton was tired and past it.

I think what really happens is that successful politicians are considered charismatic – not that charismatic politicians are more successful. When political analysts can’t get away with calling a successful politician charismatic, they focus on the deficiencies of the opponent. But these are just narratives to explain what is happening for other reasons.

So why is the Liberal Party in long-run decline? And what happened to the BQ?

I have zero insight into the second question. Everything that has happened in Quebec politics in the last two decades has surprised me. Obviously, as in English Canada, bandwagon effects are really important.

The decline of the Liberal Party makes more sense to me. It has never really fashioned a modern identity as the coalition party of the centre-left, partly because in the Quebec context, it isn’t really a party of the left at all. As Canada becomes more ideological, it either had to marginalize the NDP or be marginalized – or find some new organizational unity. Of course, we still don’t really know which of these will happen. But further marginalization seems likely.

Ignatieff is only significant in that by choosing him the Liberal Party turned its back on the strategy of hegemonizing the left in favour of a doomed attempt to compete with Harper for the right.

From: Joe Murray | May 1

Gareth makes a number of good points. I’d like to sharpen one of my thoughts from yesterday.

The antagonism between a Trudeau federalist Liberal Party and Quebec separatist parties like the Bloc was good for both of them electorally. When their fight was prominent, the NDP got left on the sidelines. With its current dissipation, both are fading and the salience of left-right politics is gaining ascendency. I agree that Ignatieff was a rightward-tilting Liberal leader.

With respect to coalitions and the possibility of luring a member or two into the NDP caucus, a few other thoughts and reconsiderations.

There was a terrible outcry over Emerson’s perfidious decision to cross the floor just after being elected. There would need to be plausible differences. A Bloc member and to a lesser extent a Liberal could say that their party’s lifespan is at an end, and call for it to join the NDP. A Liberal senator and a few Bloc staffers have made calls along these lines in the last week. If the Liberals decide they want to support a Layton administration without joining a coalition it might make sense. Cherry picking would sour relations, unfortunately.

If there were to be a coalition, I think it would make sense for it to be for a four-year mandate to provide more stability. Stability, after all, was a key plank in Harper’s platform.

I think the Liberals will want to have time to figure things out about why they continue to bleed support down to unimagined levels, election after election, leader after leader. For some on both sides, the prospect that it might allow time for the parties to merge will be attractive.

From a New Democrat perspective, it would allow a first-ever NDP administration to get up on its feet without the threat of an immediate or unexpected loss of confidence in the House. It would be good to gain time in office for a variety of reasons, from policy aims to desiring to have a record to run for reelection on to internally focused ones like training a new cadre. Hoping to have a successful quick transition to power and no serious issues with a cabinet lacking experience in governing and a caucus with a big neophyte contingent, while expecting to be in a good position to win a majority in six to eighteen months seems unwise.

Bringing in a proportional voting system might be an alternative to a merger in our federal party system, or preferably an additional change. The history of voting reform at the provincial level in Canada shows attempts to put in place a system for the strategic advantage of the administration making the change often fail to produce that sort of partisan desired result. Nonetheless, I think it could be a good part of a structural remix of our federal party system and its dynamics.

Coalition talks will be fraught enough inside each party; merger talks will be seen as treason or unnecessary fatalism in some quarters. In the NDP, early soundings would need to be made across the labour movement in Ontario, British Columbia and elsewhere. Ties with provincial parties are strong in the NDP and significant for Liberals – can you imagine how a potential federal merger would play with the provincial parties in B.C.?

I’m not clear how easy it will be for Ignatieff to remain as leader past tomorrow. If he stays, it will be more difficult to have a coalition because of his promise not to enter one. On the other hand, Layton, as senior partner, has made no promise not to have a coalition. And Harper, by running a Tory-majority-or-coalition campaign, has legitimized a coalition to a certain extent.