A Tory Prime Minister of Canada should well know that his parameters for conservative policies are pretty limited. Thus, when Prime Minister Stephen Harper proposed that Canadian political parties should not receive subsides from the federal government and that civil servants be denied the right to strike, he managed to accomplish what many thought was impossible, unite the left in a broad coalition that may very well take down his minority government. Only the fact he was able to get Canadian Governor-General Michelle Jean to shutdown parliament or “prorogue,” it as it’s known in Ottawa, stayed his execution.

The tri-party coalition of the Liberals, New Democrats and the Bloc Quebcois may be SOP in countries like Israel and Italy, but its usually unheard of Anglo parliamentary countries let alone two parties in the “first past the post” system.  Not only that, the parties are some of the most unlikeliest partners one could dream of: The sovereigntist Bloc actually supporting a coalition with their mortal enemies, the ultra-centralist Liberals? And yet because this is politics, this strange bedfellow grouping takes place because of common interests and in this case, a common desire to show relevancy.

In my last post on Canadian politics on TAC, I stated that the Bloc has basically paralyzed the political scene because they can take 50 seats in Parliament right off the table from other parties and make majority governments impossible to obtain (although the Tories are only five seats away from a majority). They want to show their relevancy to Quebec voters by displaying their ability to support or take down any government who’s interests are deemed hostile to Quebec’s. Likewise, the NDP, with its aging, industrial union and prairie farmer base squeezed as it is between the rising Greens and establishment Liberals, wants to show it can operate as a junior partner inside a government and thus went along with the coalition idea. In fact it’s eager to do so.

Of course the only problem is that Liberal leader Stephan Dion, the designated PM of this three-headed hydra, led the Liberals to one of their worst showings in a general election last October in a century. Only 28 percent of Canadians thought well enough of Dion to vote for him and yet he may very well become the next PM if the coalition holds, sort of like John McCain winning the White House despite his fitful campaign (perhaps due to a less than truthful Obama birth certificate? Who knows, the electoral vote still has to take place). Oh yes, there’s a Liberal leadership convention in May and Dion has already announced his stepping down then. So, if the coalition holds up, Canada could very well have three prime ministers in one single year in the space of five months!

Obviously there’s a certain amount of outrage amongst Canadians at such parliamentary shenanigans, certainly unprecedented in Canadian history but Harper does deserve some of the blame for this. Despite reminding us all that former PM Joe Clark’s minority government fell in 1979 because he “governed like he had a majority,” Harper tired to do the very same thing. And any criticism of the LP and NDP for working the Bloc is hollow too because Harper did exactly that (in fact was encouraged to do so by yours truly) to form his first minority government in 2006.

The end result of all this maneuvering is that Harper may very well give into Liberal demands for an expensive stimulus package for the Canadian economy (Indeed the Big 3 may very well get more money from Ottawa than Washington) just to avoid a no-confidence vote. It also shows once again, sadly, that once you give a conservative of any degree any kind of power, that person can turn into a centralist overnight. That the once Albertan separatist PM can now pose as a defender of Canadian unity is pretty sickening considering the promise his government once held to have Alberta and Quebec working together to hold back the Ontario centralists. Now, in order to stay in power, he’s become one of them.