Bob Rae hints at Liberal-NDP accord.

I doubt that Ignatieff is anxious to join an accord with the NDP. In any event the way the polls are drifting up for the Conservatives I doubt Ignatieff would be at all inclined to join with other opposition parties to defeat the government in the first place. Rae is just living in the past because the future does not look that great for the Liberals. I wonder what Ignatieff thinks of all this musing by Rae! Perhaps the NDP could form a coalition with the Conservatives after the next election if the Conservatives do not get a majority. This would be like the Liberal Democrat Conservative Coalition in the UK. This is from the GlobeandMail.

Bob Rae hints at Liberal-NDP accord
Bill Curry

Bob Rae says there’s no rule preventing the Liberals and the NDP from ganging up and toppling a newly elected Tory government: He’s done it before and now he’s hinting it may happen again.
In a brief memoir posted this week on his website, the former Ontario NDP leader and premier delivers a shot across the bow as he looks back 25 years to an agreement he negotiated with the Liberals at Queen’s Park.
“This week marks the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Liberal-NDP Accord in Ontario. The election in early May of 1985 had elected a minority Parliament, with the Conservatives at 50 [seats], the Liberals at 45 and the NDP at 25. The vote split was roughly 37/37/25 [per cent],” the Liberal MP writes.
“On the night of the election the commentators (and the Conservatives under Frank Miller) went to bed thinking it was a Conservative minority. That was the way it had been in 1975 and 1977 when Bill Davis had used the rivalry between the NDP and the Liberals to stay in power.
“My own thoughts were different. I went to bed disappointed that the provincial NDP (of which I was then the leader) had not gained more seats, but convinced that politics could not just go on as before.”
Mr. Rae’s musings about Liberals and New Democrats working together come as polling numbers show the federal Conservatives remain comfortably in first place but that the combined support for the Liberals and the NDP is greater than the support for the Tories.
Coalition talk is also in the air after Canadians watched the British Conservatives form a coalition government with the third-place Liberal Democrats. The Liberal Democrats had also negotiated with the second-place Labour Party, which led critics to attack the failed proposal as a “coalition of losers.”
Conservatives here are already warning that there are signs the Liberals are making nice again with the NDP.
In his web post, Mr. Rae describes how he and then-Ontario Liberal leader David Peterson consulted their caucus members and constitutional experts to craft an accord between the two parties that allowed the Liberals to govern without fear of “Russian roulette” threats of snap confidence votes. In exchange, they adopted some NDP policies in what Mr. Rae describes as a “working partnership,” rather than a formal coalition.
The arrangement in 1985 has been raised often in recent years in light of the pressure on the Governor-General to sort out minority-Parliament issues in Ottawa. Constitutional experts point out that the 1985 example showed the Lieutenant-Governor in that case did choose to allow another party to form a government, rather that require another election, after the governing party faced defeat on a confidence vote.
In the final sentence, Mr. Rae delivers a thinly-veiled hint that his web post is more than a simple stroll down memory lane.
“In a Parliamentary system elections produce a Parliament, and Parliament makes a government. That was the lesson learned in 1985. Prattle about ‘winning a mandate’ with less than a majority in Parliament is just that – partisan spin, all sound and fury, signifying nothing. It is a lesson worth remembering.”

Ignatieff denies he will form coalition govt.

Harper talks about playing games but he is the master of games although at times he courts disaster as well. Iggy is quite correct that he can always do as the Conservatives have done, count on the support of some opposition parties to avoid an election if he finds himself with a minority government. Assuming Iggy is a bit less confrontational than Harper he could very well survive for some time by giving a few scraps to the NDP or the Bloc or even more likely to the Conservatives--such as some tougher crime bills that are always popular it seems.
Perhaps in the end he could form a coalition. If voters always voted against politicians who broke promises no one would ever get elected.





Ignatieff insists he won't join forces with Bloc, NDP if Liberals win minority in next vote
September 12, 2009
Tonda MacCharlesOTTAWA BUREAU
OTTAWA–In a bid to counter Tory attacks, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has declared he would not form a coalition with other opposition parties if he forms a minority government in the next election.
And Canadians may find themselves going to the polls sooner rather than later. A Commons vote that could bring down the minority Conservative government has been tentatively scheduled for next Friday, sources tell The Canadian Press. The so-called ways and means motion signals an upcoming vote on a budget matter, but is considered a vote of confidence.
The Liberals have said they will not continue to support the Conservative government.
"Let me be very clear – the Liberal party would not agree to a coalition. In January we did not support a coalition and we do not support a coalition today or tomorrow," Ignatieff said yesterday.
Ignatieff said Prime Minister Stephen Harper is once again warning – in private speeches and in television ads – that the Liberals are out to form another coalition with "the separatists and the socialists" to scare people into giving him a majority government.
Ignatieff said he would work more cooperatively with the opposition parties than Harper has during his time as prime minister. But the Liberal leader could not explain how he would provide political stability in any Liberal minority situation without a formal coalition.
Instead, he said, there are "many other models" of how to run a minority government with the cooperation or support of other opposition parties without entering a formal coalition. He pointed to the Liberal minority governments of Pierre Trudeau and Lester B. Pearson as "among the most productive in the history of our country."
Ignatieff signed a letter of support for last year's coalition when Stéphane Dion was leader, but yesterday he said he should be judged on his actions once he became leader.
When Ignatieff first took over from Dion in December, he said his position was "a coalition if necessary, but not necessarily a coalition." In January, he killed it in deciding to support the government's budget. He says now a coalition was not "in the national interest."
"I could be standing here as the prime minister of Canada," Ignatieff said yesterday. "I turned it down ... . I don't think I need to give further proof of my feeling that that's not what Canadians want. I agree with Canadians."
However, when asked whether he excluded a coalition with the opposition parties if the result of an election were another Conservative minority, Ignatieff called it a hypothetical question he didn't "like."
In French, he said he would seek to form a "good Liberal government, a government of the centre that looks for honourable compromises, that looks to inspire Canadians and to unite them."
The Conservatives continue to insist that means Ignatieff is scheming to strike a coalition with the NDP or Bloc Québécois.
A senior government official, speaking on background, said Ignatieff didn't answer the "straight-up question," which was based on polls that suggest a Harper minority would be the likely outcome of any vote. "He sidestepped it, he dodged it."
Last fall, the Conservatives successfully propelled a wave of popular anger against the Liberals who, under Dion, signed a coalition agreement with the NDP. The Bloc Québécois promised its vote-by-vote support, but was not a formal partner.

Harper parries "hidden agenda" attack

The Tories are frustrated by the fact that the Liberals have finally decided not to bellow loud but then roll over softly as Harper rams his legislation through. Whether the call for a majority will work is doubtful. I cannot understand why Canadians just don't vote for other parties. Vote for Christian Heritage or a Libertarian if you are on the right vote NDP or Green or Communist if you are on the left. The two main parties are just Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum representatives of the most powerful interests and the differences between the two are marginal. One good sign is that neither leader Harper nor Ignatieff are popular among Canadians. This shows that Canadians have still some good sense left!
Harper is going to play the coalition boogey man game. Ignatieff has already rejected the idea of a coalition but that is just plain stupid. Politicians should always keep options open not close them down. By acting on suggestions such as that of Norman Spector, a former Mulroney operative Iggy would be simply cutting off sensible strategies to parry a Conservative attack of doubtful power.


PM parries 'hidden agenda' attack

Campbell Clark
Ottawa — The Globe and Mail
Last updated on Thursday, Sep. 10, 2009 12:42PM EDT
Prime Minister Stephen Harper indicates in a leaked video that he is preparing to mount a fall election campaign calling for a Tory majority, turning the tables on the “hidden agenda” attacks that long haunted him by charging the Liberals harbour a secret plan to seize power with the backing of “socialists and separatists.”
In a grainy cell-phone video provided to the CBC by the Liberals, Mr. Harper can be seen last week practicing his election campaign themes for Conservative insiders in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., at an event that was closed to reporters. The video is not the Prime Minister with his guard down, but is instead a partisan address that provides a preview of his stump speech.
Mr. Harper, who as opposition leader struggled to shake off Liberal allegations he harboured a secret far-right political agenda, is brewing up his own allegations that Michael Ignatieff has a hidden agenda: to revive the short-lived coalition with the NDP, backed by Bloc Québécois votes in the Commons, that former Liberal leader Stéphane Dion mounted December.
“Most of all friends, I want to tell you this, and I want to tell you this frankly: It will be a choice between having a Conservative government or not having a Conservative government. And let me be clear about this: we need to win a majority in the next election campaign,” Mr. Harper said in the speech.
“I am not just saying that because we need a few more seats: you saw what happened last year. Do not be fooled for a moment. If we do not get a majority, the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc Québécois will combine and they will form a government. They will deny this till they are blue in the face in an election campaign, but I guarantee it, if we do not win a majority, this country will have a Liberal government propped up by the socialists and the separatists.”
Mr. Harper has avoided direct calls for a majority since the 2004 election campaign he narrowly lost – because many Tories believed the prospect of a too-right government scared some centre and left voters back to the Liberal camp.
Mr. Harper's attempt to pin hidden hopes of leading a coalition on Mr. Ignatieff also provide the Conservative with a “wedge” that splits them from all the other parties.
But it's not clear if it will stick : the coalition was short-lived and is largely forgotten, and Mr. Ignatieff only reluctantly backed Mr. Dion's scheme, and killed the coalition once he became leader.
In his speech, Mr. Harper warns that a Liberal government propped up by the NDP and Bloc might now last long, but would do “long-term” damage to the country, favouring soft on crime policies, appointing left-wing judges, and expanding spending permanently.
Mr. Harper makes clear that it is not just coalitions he will campaign against, but that he will charge that the Liberals will raise taxes as the recession ends, while the Tories won't. The huge deficits generated by recession-era stimulus packages means either future cuts to government spending or future hikes in taxes, and Mr. Harper will promise to protect Canadians' pocketbooks.
“They have said, and I know Mr. Ignatieff is trying to change his tune today, they have said repeatedly they would raise taxes to pay for that spending, to pay for their permanent spending.”
“And that, friends, is one of the biggest single reasons this government needs to be elected: so when the recession is over, we can keep taxes going down in this country.”