Andrew Potter: The Coalition, the 'Coup,' the 'Crisis,' and the Language of Complaint

People really need to just calm down, for starters. Then read Andrew Potter:

The language of complaint is shot through with assumptions and norms that rest on an American view of checks and balances, bicameralism, and presidentialism. In many ways, this is far more pernicious than 19th century romanticism, because at least the romantics understand, dimly, how parliament actually works.

The Americanists, on the other hand, don't understand parliament, and so their complaints are underwritten by an unwarranted sense that the working of Canadian system is actually illegitimate. Take, for example, the current coalition agreement that has been set up by the Libs and NDP and the tacit support of the Bloc. I don’t like it, but there is nothing remotely unconstitutional about it. It is thoroughly legitimate.

Canadians did not vote for Stephane Dion, no. But we did not vote for Stephen Harper either. We elected a parliament, which will support who it will support. Under our constitution, neither the people nor the prime minister even exist, there is only parliament.

It is bad enough that most of the complainers out there don’t get it. Stephen Harper knows better, and chooses to pretend otherwise.

This reminded me of a recent essay by Raymond Mackintosh, in which he admits: "The problem is that liberal-minded people, and I am one such, are not immune from falling into the trap of believing what we wish to be true rather than that which is true."

The problem afflicts Conservatives, too, and it is here that Stephen Harper is going one worse. He's not just pretending he doesn't get it. He's asking Canada to engage in his game of pretend as well, in these two ways: He's saying "the opposition wants to overturn the results" of the recent federal election by entering into "a power-sharing coalition with a separatist party."

These are falsehoods.

Harper's big problem here isn't in the Opposition's complaints, but in its size, and its size is a result of the recent election, not an overturning of its results. Opposition MPs outnumber the MPs that support Harper in the Commons. If Harper doesn't have the confidence of a Commons majority, he's toast. This is obviously not what Harper would wish to be true, but it's true nonetheless. Wishing we were a republic won't make it so, so you can't pretend that we have a president that's about to be overthrown by some usurper. We're a parliamentary, constitutional democracy. Parliament rules.

Further, the Liberals and the New Democrats have not entered a "power-sharing coalition" with the Bloc (as if this would change Harper's predicament in any way), nor do they propose to. Instead, they have proposed a two-party coalition, and the Bloc says it would support it, for a period of 18 months, if the coalition can win support from the Governor-General.

I don't buy the hyperventilation about the spectre of proroguing Parliament, either. Give everybody a few weeks to calm down, bring in a budget, and if it fails, the coalition can assemble itself and put its pleadings to Michaelle Jean. Her constitutional and legal advisers may well suggest she decline the offer, rendering the coalition idea moot by sending it all back to the people to decide.

Which would suit me fine.

Update: "Liberal MP Derrick Lee, meanwhile, compared Harper's move to suspend Parliament to the burning of the Reichstag in Germany by the Nazis."

Like I said, people really need to calm down.