The Coalition: Tory Manna from Heaven

So it's on. 

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has historically been found in contempt of Parliament, and the House of Commons voted no confidence in his government by a margin of 156 to 145. This outcome will plunge the country into a campaign to elect the 41st Parliament in a vote most likely to take place on May 2. Harper will formally meet with Governor-General David Johnston in the morning to request the dissolution of Parliament, the election writ will be dropped, and away we will go.

“We are the people’s representatives. When the government spends money, the people have a right to know what it is to be spent on. Parliament does not issue blank cheques.”
- Opposition Leader Michael Ignatieff

“We find ourselves here today faced with the most partisan of attacks from an opposition coalition bent on defeating this government at all costs.”
- Government House Leader John Baird

The contempt finding comes from the Harper government not thinking it necessary to bother to inform MPs how much they intend to spend on their jet fighters and jail plans. Not unreasonably, the House of Commons requested the full and accurate accounting of those expenses be tabled. The government did not comply. Hence, the government is no more. There will be a lot of propaganda from the Tories about this election being "unnecessary" because stability in the economy is paramount in Conservative minds. Never mind that economists think that's hogwash, they will keep spitting that line in the hope it sticks.

They also hope the line about the Liberals wanting a "coalition" to stick as well. The ham-handed handling of the Coalition Crisis by all parties helped to transform the c-word into a dirty utterance, a development the Tories are enlisting with gusto in their attempt to remain in power. Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff keeps dodging it, saying the clear choice is to vote either for a change of government by voting Liberal or for more of the same contemptuous crap by voting for anyone else. Nice try, Iggy.

Though today's answer was better than the "red door, blue door" Matrix reference of yesterday, it won't make the questions go away. As Andrew Coyne wrote in his article, the Grits better come up with a plausible response, and quickly. The Tories threaten to hijack the entire debate by repeating the word "coalition" ad naseum. If they are permitted to do that, then attacking the Tories on the economy and their ethics becomes a moot point.

Because make no mistake, the Tories are also vulnerable on the economic file. When they came to power in early 2006, the Martin Liberals were in surplus with adequate cash flows to deal with unexpected eventualities. The Tories immediately set about eliminating our government's fiscal cushion through a number of measures, most famously cutting the GST to 5% in a move most economists argued made no fiscal sense. When the country was heading for recession, the Tories pretended to party like it was still 1999. Then when stimulus spending became a financial necessity, Ottawa ended up deeper in deficit than we would have had they maintained the fiscal prudence of the previous Liberal government. The current Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty, has presided over the most profligate period of federal spending in our history. The Tories have expanded the federal public service, eliminated contingencies for future financial shocks and doled out boutique tax breaks that further strain federal coffers. Yet they are the default "best stewards of the national economy?" Someone needs to take them to task, because their record screams otherwise.

I'm no fan of the Liberal Party of Canada, but why is it that Tories, who entered elections in 1993 and 2011 with historic deficits, are considered better financial stewards than the Liberals, who left the country's books in a surplus position? It continues to defy logic.

And since the government has fallen on issues of transparency, ethics and clean government, it will be easy for the other parties to put these questions to the public during the campaign. How can you re-elect a government that continues to so blatantly disrespect you, that believes they can do anything in your name and you'll take it, they will ask the public. How can you re-elect a government that won't tell you how much their planned military and correctional expenditures will cost, yet claim they can balance the nation's books by 2015, they will ask taxpayers. How can you re-elect a government that got elected in the first place by promising open and accountable government, while at the same time orchestrating a huge electoral fraud, they will ask voters.

How indeed?

Well, they can if they think a coalition of bumbling fools will replace the current batch of corrupt, contemptuous fools.

Mr. Ignatieff, for the love of all that's good and holy, answer the bloody question so we can get on with the real issues of the election. Please!

What is the True Cost of Government?

It now appears the opposition may be maneuvering to bring down the "Harper Government" on ethics before the federal budget is introduced in the House of Commons on March 22. The triple-bill of: allegations of improper conduct against Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, the ongoing issues surrounding Bev Oda and her handling of the CIDA Kairos affair, and the charges from Elections Canada in the "in-and-out" scheme the Conservative national campaign conducted during the 2006 campaign have made the Tories vulnerable on one of their major bread and butter issues.

The opposition smells blood and the Harperites are in full damage control mode. If the Liberals, NDP and Bloc are looking at the political landscape, they must be thinking this might be their last, best chance to take down the Tories.

For some weird reason, the Conservatives have the economy issue locked up (despite running the country into a record deficit situation, which may not have been necessary had they not chopped corporate taxes and the GST at the exact moment we went into a recession they denied was on the horizon, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary). Taking the government down on a budget vote would necessarily make the election about the budget, and the opposition has had little luck standing toe-to-toe with Harper on policy.  They've landed a few body blows that hurt a bit, but nothing that would take out the champ.

The issue of ethics is different, though. The Tories claimed the mantle of accountability and transparency when they beat Paul Martin in 2006. Five years later, the Liberals (even with the sponsorship scandal) look no better or worse than these guys on ethics. If the government is vulnerable to having anything stick to them, it's anything that calls their integrity into question.

Worse for them, should there be continuing negative publicity from the court case associated with the in and out scandal, it will likely come out during the campaign. The sight of Tories walking into a courthouse to face charges they made illegal claims to get money from taxpayers in excess of campaign spending limits must be too juicy for the opposition parties to easily dismiss.

What I want the opposition to do, though, is link the economy and the ethics issues together by asking a basic question - even if you, Everyday Canadian, accept that the Tories are the best stewards of the economy, what is the cost to democracy to continue Conservative rule? At what cost to our morals, values and ethics do we re-elect Harper and Co. to office?

Line up all the questionable activities, the arrogant dismissals of criticism (and critics), the ministerial indiscretions, the prorogations and the like, and have a tally sheet that looks like a financial spreadsheet. Attack the Tories on their financial record (which, despite John Ibbitson's musings, isn't all that great) and graphically increase the fiscal deficit shown to Canadians when you add in the democratic deficit. 

Make the case that Canada is poorer today than it was five years ago, but not in ways Canadians had expected. Remind Canadians again and again they elected the Tories to clean up government, not to make it MORE secretive, MORE control-obsessed or MORE corrupt than the Liberals. And yet on the issue of ethics, what have the Tories done for us lately?

The biggest problem, of course, is the party best situated to try and topple the Tories are the very Liberals who gave us the sponsorship scandal. Have five years in the electoral wilderness been enough to purge that party of its worst instincts? Perhaps, perhaps not. That's for the electorate to decide. 

But there probably will be no other glorious moments of weakness for the Tories after this one. They are bloodied by this issue, not floored, and are still quite capable of staging an effective counter-offensive. Plus, they start with the advantage in the poll numbers that gives many Liberals pause. 

But I think honestly that this is as good as it's going to get. Find your moment, put forward the non-confidence motion of your choosing, and force the issue, Liberal Party of Canada. Fail to do so now, and we'll be talking about a Harper majority in six months.

In and Out ... of Office?

I swear to every thinking person who reads this blog -- the "in and out" scheme the federal Tories used for its national advertising during the 2006 election campaign is going to be the undoing of the Harper government.

They are pretending not to take the risk very seriously in public specifically because the issue is potentially fatal to their cause. The recent appellate court defeat on their civil suit takes away their crowing point about the courts being on their side.  And the charges laid against four party members (including two sitting Senators) puts a lie to this being an insignificant "administrative dispute."

Now, let me be clear -- as other bloggers and writers have already posted on the internet, this issue is not always the simplest to explain to people, is it the kind of thing cynical voters would not be shocked to hear about, given that it's politicians involved in this scandal, and it is likely to be forgotten in the heat of an election campaign. It's not likely this issue in isolation will bring down the government.

The reason this one will sting is because it's a definitive straw on the pile already perched on Canadians' collective camel-like back.

This is a party that campaigned in 2006 on being the party of accountability and transparency. How can they ever make that claim again if Elections Canada proves its charges in court? I mean, these charges stem from how they conducted themselves in the campaign that originally brought them to power. That would be the same election campaign when the Tories were beating the Liberals over the head with their copy of the Gomery inquiry report on the sponsorship scandal. They were going to change the culture of government, they said, and make sure this kind of thing could never happen again.

All while acting illegally in their own campaign advertising campaign. The hypocrisy and irony run thick and rich.

The Tories have collected a small stack of ethics-defying mini brouhahas over the course the past five years. They have created an almost militaristic environment for government MPs and Senators who are expected to toe the line or find another place of employment. The Prime Minister's Office could have taught Trudeau, Mulroney and Chrétien a thing or two about how to be top dog -- the centralized control of the government by the current PMO is unparalleled in Canadian history.  

The scandalous Afghan detainee imbroglio that led to a prorogation of Parliament feeds into the party's reputation as serial skirters of ultimate political responsibility. The earlier prorogation during the Coalition Crisis was another example of Harper's obsessive need for control and his party's willingness to do whatever is necessary to retain power, no matter the cost to our sense of fairness and our faith in democratic principles. The uproar over Bev Oda's handling of CIDA's Kairos funding decision is another instance where Tory pre-government rhetoric and the five-years-of-Tory-government reality don't line up. The examples of Conservative misconduct, arrogance and outright disdain for Parliament and other key institutions are numerous.

Add it all up, and it becomes obvious that taking a strong line of attack by lining all these examples up could be a powerful argument for opposition to Harper's government to make in any upcoming election campaign.

Will it happen? Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition will have its moment sometime relatively soon. But given the current plight of the Liberal party, it's tough to see them pulling it together enough to do the necessary damage. A physically weakened Jack Layton may not be the best messenger on the hustings if the electoral writ is dropped this year. And Gilles Duceppe will do what he always does -- win a majority of Quebec seats while having a minimal impact on the cross-Canada debate.

But if the Liberals and NDP can sharpen their knives just enough to inflict enough damage from both sides, it might be enough to deny a renewed mandate for the Tories. Sadly, the knives in opposition will be used mostly to try and take out each other for short-term advantage amongst the votes they already collectively command.

I wish I was optimistic that they can remove Harper from government. I'm not. But this agglomeration of greasy, sticky, grimy, slimy dealings from the Tories means any renewed mandate they earn in the future will be weighed down by the malfeasance clogging their engine of government. Moving ahead with a believable air of confidence and integrity will be extremely difficult to muster.

So will the in and out scandal undo Harper? Yes, sooner or later. But maybe not in 2011.