| All right, I'm probably gonna get attacked by all sides for this but I support this potential coalition government.
First of all, yes we have democratic means to elect our officials but Canada's parliamentary system is not a democracy at its purest form. The executive and legislative branches of government are not exclusive from one another like in a country such as the United States for example. So that means that the Prime Minister is not elected by democratic means but it's rather the members of his party that choose him .
Yes, the party that has most seats in the House of Commons is the party with executive power, but that mandate is only clear and irreversible when that party alone has a majority of seats, which the Conservatives do not, which is why they're called a minority government. It also means that while they're the party that has won the most seats, there remains a majority of Canadians who didn't vote for the Conservatives and the Conservatives have to take that fact into account when they govern, which they haven't.
A minority government has to make concessions with other parties in order to make parliament work and when the Harper government came in session with a legislative agenda that wasn't featured in their campaign and that implemented measures that are unacceptable to the representatives of the other three parties in the House that all together form a majority, then it's no wonder that, not wanting to go into yet another election, the idea of a coalition government surfaced.
A coalition government is perfectly legal and constitutional. We had a coalition government during World War I. If the Harper government is hell bent on making no concessions and doesn't come up with an initiative to face the economic crisis at hand, then a coalition government, where 3 separate parties, representing together a majority of Canadians, can find something that works for their respective interests, has more legitimacy than a unilateral Conservative government.
To those who argue that the BQ has no business deciding who should form the government, I say this: the separation of Quebec from the rest of Canada is not done via the BQ but rather via the Parti Quebecois on the provincial level. The BQ does not exist in Ottawa to sabotage the federal government but rather to look out for Quebec's interests and sometimes, the laws their representatives vote for actually coincide with some of the rest of Canada's interests. Now the BQ reached an agreement with the other 2 parties to make this potential coalition government legitimate so it's in all 3 parties' best interests to make this coalition governement work. The 3 parties forming a coalition represent a majority of Canadians and whether we like it or not, this majority includes those who voted for the BQ.
And finally, on a strictly personal level, I'm more comfortable with a coalition government because not only does it represent more clearly to me a spirit of cooperation but I have more positions in common regarding the economy, the environment, the foreign policy and the social issues with those 3 parties than I do with the Conservatives so that is why I'd be willing to see how a coalition government could handle the country. |