In the end, Michael Ignatieff had a decision to make. Do words and actions have consequences, or did he return to Canada to deliver empty threats every few months? Apparently it took him some time to pick an answer to that question, but by the time the Liberal caucus gathered in Sudbury this week, Ignatieff had chosen to give his behaviour a little consistency. In so doing he gave Canadian politics, at last, a little drama. And he seems to have put the country on a fast track to a fall election, barely a year after the last one.
“After four years of drift, four years of denial, four years of division and discord—Mr. Harper, your time is up,” Ignatieff told his caucus. “The Liberal party cannot support this government any further. We will hold it to account. We will oppose it in Parliament.”
This could wind up meaning any number of things. It could be a wet firecracker if the NDP or the Bloc Québécois take Ignatieff’s new assertiveness as their cue to reverse a solid trend of voting against the government at every chance. But if they don’t—if every opposition party votes against the government on a money bill or an explicit confidence motion—then sometime soon after the House of Commons reconvenes on Sept. 14, this miserable backbiting cliffhanging Parliament will come skidding to a halt and its various inhabitants will head back home to their ridings to ask us for another chance.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his trusty adjutant, John Baird, were quick to denounce any thought of an election as irresponsible. There’s an economic crisis on, they said, and no politician’s attention should be anywhere else.
The argument will be persuasive to some voters. It’s true that there was an election only last year, but that one followed nearly three years of more-or-less productive activity, whereas a fall election this year would come after a much shorter break from the hustings.
Ignatieff, however, must have calculated he had no choice. He has been delivering a succession of I-Really-Mean-It-Now ultimatums to Harper ever since he fell into the Liberal leadership from which the party had unceremoniously ejected Stéphane Dion in, approximately, January. The moment was fast approaching when his constant warnings to Harper would be revealed to mean either (a) nothing or (b) something.
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I would say Coyne’s on the money… no election this year… but I don’t think the Tories will make it to 2012.
If rational decisions are made by the NDP mostly, and maybe the Bloc, and they will find a reason to at least postpone an election until an ” undefined later “: Pride and feeling they have painted themselves into a corner ? Then probably an election!
The Bloc probably has the least to lose as most of the Liberal gains, if any, would be on the Island of Montreal as the federalist vote has traditionally been of the knee jerk ” I vote Liberal no matter how bad “, and ” I would never vote Conservative no matter how good ” voters. In the rest of Quebec the Conservatives might lose all their seats or some of their seats to the Block: So what the Bloc might lose on the Island of Montreal to the Liberals they might gain back from the Conservatives.
The numbers of available Conservative seats limit this possible up side for the Block so the results in Quebec might be a slightly decreased or slightly increased number of Block MPs.
Quebec though is very ” Mercurial ” and a good or bad campaign can make things turn on a dime: If Quebecers fall in love with Ignatieff they could go strongly Liberal, if they turn off him but don’t go back to Harper the Block goes way up. If Harper can do a much better job of communicating with Quebecers ( And this is mostly what went wrong last time, plus a hostile French MSM ) he might very well recapture the Federalist vote (assuming Ignatieff tanks ) and get the rural and Quebec region vote that is a lot lest “socialistic” and where the people who voted for the ADQ.
The ADQ advisors ” helping “! Harper last time are out of the picture, I hope, as even if they where well meaning they just didn’t give the right advice or good advice if any wasn’t taken, I wasn’t there so I’m guessing ! ( It didn’t help that Charest did everything to hurt the Conservative chances last time because he was angry at the Conservative and ADQ being too chummy ).
The Conservative War room has to be able to react quickly but avoid any ” frat boy stunts ” that did more harm than good last time: This not only for Québec but also for the whole country.