Ignatieff’s dilemma

At last, the Liberals got something right. They actually let the best candidate to lead the party. Dominic LeBlanc’s withdrew from the race on Monday, Bob Rae followed on Tuesday. That leaves Michael Ignatieff with no-one to run against. Which is fine because he was the best of them anyway. The question is why it has taken so long.

Liberals’ coalition partner, the New Democrats, seemed to be relieved after the leadership mess has been cleared. But what about the future of the Coalition? Ignatieff’s attitude towards the idea is generally described as “lukewarm”.

Should he foster the idea and keep the coalition alive? The treaty, albeit a document enforced under unusual circumstances, is not just a scrap of paper and should be honoured. How it is implemented in the world of real politics is another question. The Coalition makes sense from the perspective of bringing the Conservative government of Stephen Harper down. But what will come next? The Parliament will resume the session on January 26, 2009, more than three months after the election. Bringing down Harper’s government, as was planned, could result in the coalition being asked to form the Government, but it can also trigger new election. After the last week decision to grant Harper the prorogation, it’s very difficult to predict how the Governor General would react.

The new election would give advantage back to the Conservatives and could potentially ruin the Liberals financially. But should the Coalition keep Harper in power? That would potentially ruin the Liberals politically. Should they go on and rely on the GG to sack Harper and ask the Coalition to form the government? Ignatieff will have to be careful.

(Written for World Business Press Online)

Hollow Men of the Liberal Party

Stéphane Dion is stepping down. Again. I think only Bill Gates announced stepping down more times, using a “salami method” to slowly, gradually, post by post, withdraw from the company he loved so much, the company damned so many times by too many. Each time, most of the press provided backing vocals singing praises and preaching the gospel of Gates.

Dion’s second departure, sort of announced on Monday, will be less pompous, think of whimper, not of a bang. The world will not end, only the hollow men of the Liberal party will have less time to think about the future of the party they helped to damage.

After the federal election on October 14, Dion announced he would step down. In May. Inexorable logic of political cause and the effect, however, suggests that the unsuccessful election leader steps down immediately If he did, the Liberals would have had one less problem to solve. But it’s all academic now.

Dominic LeBlanc, Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae showed the much needed unity in the hour of need and supported Dion on the day the Coalition agreement was signed. And they should have maintained that position whether the parliament was prorogued or not. From a few-days distance it seems they could have delay the leadership race until after the overall political situation would have had stabilized, but who could have known that the Governor General would throw democracy out of the window and give prime ministers powers to shut down parliament any time they’d face a no-confidence vote.

Still, while the Liberals’ enemy was tearing the country apart alongside anglo-franco and east-west lines, instead of showing the much needed unity of the party for the sake of the country, they went on to squabble over the leadership. Yes, supporting Dion wasn’t the first choice of many, but it would be lesser of two evils. That’s what parties do to show the unity and to come to power. It requires both maturity and ability to control one’s personal ambitions. When forming coalitions, people swallow their prides, forget past fights, but apparently it’s easier to forgive your political opponents than to get on with your party comrades.

The Liberals had the chance to use the parliamentary crisis to renew the sense of leadership they shattered during the federal election campaign. Instead, they’re using the salami method to deconstruct their own party. After arguing over the leader, they are now arguing over how to chose one. Instead of debating policies, they debate the ways how their party should work.

This makes Prime Minister Harper the happiest person in Canada. It’s not that he managed to beat the Liberals, his political genius stems from him being an opportunistic authoritarian rather than a brilliant super-strategist who “planned all of this”. The Liberals made him blink, blink big, and then stopped mid-way. Harper didn’t really win, but the Liberals have surely lost. Not with a bang. With a whimper.

(Written for World Business Press Online)

No kangaroos in Austria and no Canadian journos in Brussels

There are more than one thousand journalists accredited in Brussels, the de-facto capital of the European Union. None of them works for a Canadian media organization. The rumour has it that there actually is a Canadian journalist in the EU press gallery, but he doesn’t work for a Canadian media outlet.

European union affairs are, if, covered from London or Paris. Does it make sense? Yes and no. Studying the impact of EU policies in the member states is certainly a good thing, but sampling two countries out of 27 doesn’t really represent the diversity of the EU. And there’s another problem. EU decisions, or to be precise, decisions adopted by the EU member states in Brussels, are inevitably digested by the country’s mood reflected and shaped by the local media. In London, it means anything between euro-skepticism and euro-hostility most of the times.

With the English being the dominant language in Canada, it translates into mostly negative coverage, as proved rather conclusively by Steffi Retzlaff (Mc Master University) and Stefan Gänzle (University of British Columbia) in their work Constructing the European Union in Canadian News.

Europe’s opinion, voiced in Ottawa by the current French EU presidency, is that this is not really adequate. It’s not about spreading the good news, it’s about spreading at least some news and getting it right, as apparently, not many people in Canada know what the European Union actually is, and that includes both journalists and their audience. Among other things, the EU is Canada’s second largest trading partner, with which Canada negotiates free-trade arrangements. It’s a single market with almost 500 million people. India and China may have almost 3 billion combined, but most of them cannot be described as consumers and that is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. In the media, current affairs concerning the European Union are often referred to through individual states with the EU moniker used only as synonym for the rest of the countries, not for the European Union as a single political and economic entity (France, Germany, UK and EU…. ). Instances, where Britain is referred to as a separate from the EU, even when the EU acts as a single player, are common.

There are other reasons why Canadian media do not have a dedicated correspondent in the Europe’s capital. Canadian media market is small and local media outlets simply do not have funds not just for an adequate EU coverage but also, as some insiders argue, for a proper coverage of the US affairs. In any case, EU, or European affairs, rarely make it to the prominent section of international news sections in the newspapers. Canadian media outlets are in the process to focus more on Asia, mostly China and India.

This has an interesting consequence. Canadians are left with only one economically and politically comparable country. The United States. That gives them rather dubious legitimacy to say, that their health care system etc. is the best in the world. On the other hand, European Union has become something of a holy grail for a certain wing of Canadian nationalists. Well, the term “Canadian nationalist” may be considered an oxymoron, given the east-west, anglo-franco etc. division lines that are still distinctive in Canada. Still, some Canadian nationalists, defined as strictly not-Americans, see the EU as a powerful entity to balance out the overwhelming and unavoidable influence of the United States and encourage closer cooperation with the EU. Some say they do have a point. But that’s another story….

(Written for World Business Press Online)

Dangers of precedents

Some countries you love. Some countries you hate. Canada is a country you worry about. Canadian author Robertson Davies, author of the above definition, seems to have nailed it.

Prime minister Stephen Harper, facing a non-confidence vote everybody knew he was going to lose, asked the Governor General Michaëlle Jean to prorogue the parliament for almost two months, to avoid the vote. And the Governor General duly obliged. Unconditionally. From now on, any prime minister, facing a no-confidence vote will be able to do the same. At any point.

The Governor General could have set another precedent, or, depending on the point of view, re-affirm the one set in the 1920s in the King-Byng affair. She could have asked the coalition of the two opposition parties, that had secured majority of votes in the House of Commons, to form a government. That would have done much less damage, certainly in political and constitutional sense, because it would have had been both more controllable and less likely to occur.

The 2008 Canadian parliamentary dispute (already a Wikipedia entry) highlighted several issues that will have to be addressed at some point in the future. Despite the paint of multiculturalism and openness, Canada still listens to sunshine patriotism talk and anti-Quebec sentiments. That, in turn, alienated many Quebecois and the dispute certainly did nothing to ease East-West inter-provincial warfare, on the contrary, it deepened the divide. Stirring pseudo-patriotic emotions and hatred is irresponsible. Another point of interest is that Canadians do not really understand how their political system and election systems work.

The parliament is closed. Canada is left deeply divided. It will be governed by a minority government led by the prime minister who managed to secure the right to decide at will whether he would allow the non-confidence vote. There’s no institution, and certainly no elected institution, to prevent that. Is it time to worry about Canada?

(Written for World Business Press Online)

Amazing Harper

Unfortunately, after Jim Prentice, Canadian environment minister, said that “this attempt by the coalition, the separatist coalition is undemocratic”, he didn’t go on to explain which coalition he meant. Resolving the validity of the word “separatist” is a question of realizing that the Bloc Québécois is not the part of the Liberals/New Democrats coalition. Yet, the Conservatives continue to use pseudo-patriotic rhetoric and compare the cooperation with the Bloc Québécois to a treason.

Branding a coalition formed in the democratically elected parliament by the legally elected MPs as undemocratic would send any government minister in any parliamentary democracy right down to the political cemetery. Coalitions are normal part of multi-party parliamentary democracies and if the Conservatives can’t get it, they are probably not happy with Canada being a multi-party parliamentary democracy. Their attempt to ruin opposition financially by tailoring the legislation to suit them was certainly very suggestive in that matter.

Meanwhile, Stephen Harper relies on the lack of knowledge of political system Canadian citizens are displaying and fosters the false idea that Canadian citizens elect prime ministers and the governments.

Studying how parliamentary democracies work would reveal, to both Harper and Canadians, that if you form a minority government, you usually try to secure some kind of support from one or more opposition parties to stay in power and to run as much of your program through the parliament as possible. Instead, Harper did all he could to alienate the opposition. Now he has very little ground to accuse the Liberals for refusing to cooperate on budget with the Conservatives because he never made the offer.

Instead, after loosing legitimate arguments, he went to an overdrive of populism, creating a sense of national unity being threatened and now he’s appealing to calm down the very emotions he deliberately created. Another danger is that by demonizing Quebec, and indirectly Eastern Canada, the Conservatives are profiling themselves as a regional Western political party.

In the evening, Harper made a televised address to the Canadians. Instead of coming up with a plan that would involve all political parties, he went on to repeat the mythology about the Canadians choosing governments and giving mandates to a particular party to govern. Another interesting point was accusing the coalition of changing the results of election which was simply ridiculous.

Harper tried to put himself into a role of defender of democracy. However, by saying that the opposition didn’t have the democratic right for a coalition he proved exactly the opposite. On Thursday, he will visit the Governor General with only one plea. To prorogue the parliament until the end of January to avoid non-confidence vote he will lose. Or would he go directly for the new elections?

(Written for World Business Press Online)

Harper’s rhetoric threatens Canada

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative party can’t enjoy the status of being the majority political entity in the House of Commons, and, de facto, lost the House’s confidence. Harper is now, apparently, loosing the plot and plays very dangerous game with only objective – to stir up the public emotions to extremes in a hope to stay in power.

During the Tuesday question period, Harper managed to sink into the lowest level of vulgar nationalistic populism and criticized the coalition for not having a Canadian flag behind them – when they signed the treaty in one of the rooms of the House of Commons.

There were two Canadian flags, one at each side of the table.

It would have to take a wide-angle camera to get them and the three leaders in the picture. And that’s exactly what Harper is missing. Wide picture.

By branding the coalition as a threat to the Canada unity, Harper decided to alienate Quebec and to turn the western Canada, his electoral base, against the francophone province, which, at the moment, is still an integral part of Canada. As is Alberta. Forgetting in the proces, that he himself relied on support of the Bloc few years ago while in opposition and recognized Quebec as a nation. Of course, sovereignist agenda of the Bloc Québécois is not making an abrupt exit. However, in the current economic situation, most of what’s good for Quebec is good for Canada and vice versa and in that sense, Bloc’s support for the Liberal/NDP coalition makes a lot of sense.

At the moment, however, the economic agenda is only one part of the debate. The other half is democracy. The Harper’s Conservatives tried to undermine the opposition financially by tweaking rules about political parties financing to suit themselves. They proposed to withdraw the right to strike from the public sector workers. And then they managed to pull out their own Watergate and produced an unauthorized (read illegal) recording of the private NDP’s MPs phone conversation. Harper is now trying to avoid the inevitable by postponing the confidence vote and, potentially, adjourning the parliament. In that sense, the coalition is putting the country first – it’s trying to prevent Stephen Harper quest to establish the Conservatives as the permanent election winner.

Or is the all part of Harper’s intention to make the parliament dysfunctional, force in the new election whatever the cost and get the majority? He wouldn’t be the first autocratic, democratically elected leader of a party to do so.

(Written for World Business Press Online)

Coalition forming highlights immaturity of Canadian electorate

Canadians are totally gobsmacked by the proposition of majority of parties forming a coalition government. Political analysts and political scientists are taking turns in TV studios trying to explain what the heck a coalition is. Amazingly, Canadians still believe that they elect governments in general elections, but that can be easily explained by the nature of the democratically deficient first-past-the-post election system. People don’t elect governments. People elect parliaments. Parliaments form governments.

The amazing thing is how the CBC is stirring anti-coalition moods by repeatedly airing anti-coalition statement of people many of whom seem to have no idea about how Canadian political system work and, more importantly, how democracy work. That plays in accord with the Conservatives propaganda machine that’s desperately trying to brand the coalition as something non-democratic and suggesting that it amounts to coup d’état. Conservative even went as far as to suggest that the Monday’s TSX drop occurred due to the forming of coalition.

Governor General Michaëlle Jean fortunately stayed calm and voiced what was one of the few reasonable opinions – it’s part of the democratic process

Canada, grow up.

The greatest game in Canadian history

The deal is done. Canada has entered the age of mature western politics – the new political reality in Ottawa is that the coalition of three opposition parties has the majority of votes in the House of Commons. The Conservatives are the minority party.

The leaders of Canadian opposition parties, the New Democrats, the Liberals and the Bloc Québécois, signed the coalition treaty with the ambition to replace the Conservatives’ government of Stephen Harper. The new government will only feature NDP and Liberal MP but the Bloc will support their coalition at least until June 30, 2010. It’s a power deal, no doubt, but Stéphane Dion, Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe showed much more political maturity than leaders of the Conservative party, who instead of reaching out to secure at least an occasional ad-hoc majority went on a rampage to alienate everybody else.

The deal is straightforward in its outlines and economy objectives and rather complicated regarding the mechanism of the coalition. Still, the deal was signed and Stéphane Dion, as the leader of the Liberal Party and the Leader of the Opposition sent a letter to the Governor General stating that the Conservative government lost the confidence of the House of Commons and that there is more than a viable alternative already formed. This was the only plausible way to prevent Canada from sliding into economic downturn and political nightmare that could result in a one party system and a permanent election winner.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives are playing dangerous populistic game spreading the scare supposedly coming from having a coalition with the support of the Bloc Québécois, whom as Stephen Harper said, are breaking up Canada. However, in 2004 he considered Bloc’s support to take over the minority Paul Martin’s government. On Monday, Harper ruled out any coalition with the Bloc which is in line with the way he led the election campaign during which he managed to stir up the tension by deliberately provocative proposals and remarks. Most of Québécois found them humiliating and offensive while the Conservative’s electoral base found them appropriate. By the way, Harper’s government that officially recognized Quebec as a nation,

Another dangerous remark was uttered by the former Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer “Canadians won’t tolerate this.” What has Harper in store? Are we going to see bus-loads of Conservative supporters defending Harper’s imaginary right to be the Prime Minister at the Parliament Hill and across the country? Harper can prorogue the parliament (subject to approval by the Governor General), ending the current session prematurely, to buy himself another month hoping that the opposition deal will break down – and to prevent the non-confidence vote that he already postponed by a week.

Governor General will have to also decide what to do after the Parliament votes on non-confidence, which will very likely happen at the first possible opportunity. Calling the election would be unwise and counterproductive. Leaving the minority Conservative government in power will create a locked-down Parliament. Coalition of the willing supported by the majority of Canadian population is the only reasonable solution.

Coalitions tend to put aside black-and white politics, force political parties to compromise and work for the country, and leave minimum space for political ideologies and overambitious political egos.

(Written for World Business Press Online)