I’m just reading plenty of comments on news sites and blogs right now, and am trying to get an understanding of what in the hell is happening here in Canada.
Every once in a while, in the comments section of various blogs, a certain type of comment appears again and again. It speaks to the legality of minority parties forming a coalition.
Likely written by an ex-political science major working as a customer service rep for a telephone company, Armchair Constitutional Expert Guy has this to say:
“Oh, you Canadian plebians and your ignorance of parlimentary systems. We live in a Parliament; the Prime Minister is not ‘elected’ but only holds the office, and under the legal framework, parties are free to negotiate a coalition in order to form a government. There is no bloodless coup, nor is there a crisis happening. This is how a Parliamentary system operates. Love it or leave it”.
I call bullshit on this sort of thinking because Canadians have been duped by a huge bait-and-switch scam. Canadians elected a minority government, and voted with a certain understanding. Granted, in my previous post, I commented that Canadians can’t be forgiven for not being aware that there were talks of a coalition prior to the election, and that perhaps people are ignorant for not having kept up on the facts. In retrospect, Canadians have busy lives, and such talks were never made to be an official part of any platform, as far as I am aware (If I’m wrong on this, let me know). I think Canadians went to the polls with a general idea that a coalition was not part of anyone’s platform.
Hence the question: had the three parties made a coalition a part of their electoral platform, how would the votes have fallen in the election?
In essence, the coalition government is akin to a bait-and-switch tactic.
In retail sales, a bait and switch is a form of fraud in which the party putting forth the fraud lures in customers by advertising a product or service at an unprofitably low price, then reveals to potential customers that the advertised good is not available but that a substitute is.
In Canada, the bait-and-switch scam is illegal under the Competition Act.
Some people don’t mind the bait-and-switch scam because they might end up finding something they like better when they go into a store (or in this case, a new session of parliament). In this sense, there are many Canadians who view the coalition government as an example of parties working together to maximize their lot and their voter’s positions within the political structure. However, other people get really peeved when their expectations are not met as advertised. In this other sense, many Canadians are seeing the issue in terms of a power grab, a putsch, or a bloodless coup. In their view, many Canadians voted, and got the government they deserved, and expect everyone else to accept the reality handed down to them by the voters.
It would have been fairer, in my mind, had the Bloc, NDP and Liberals stated prior to the election that they would be gunning for a coalition government. At least voters could vote knowing what sort of government they would get. Thus it seems the only fair thing to do is have another election and let Canadians decide if a coalition government can deliver.
