The Canadian Political Situation

An update on the Canadian political situation: a Coalition consisting of the Liberal Party, the New Democratic Party (NDP) and the Bloc Quebecois Party have entered into a written deal where they agreed to serve together in a coalition government for the next couple of years. As a result, they are going to put forth a no confidence vote in Parliament next Monday. In effect, they are attempting to topple a minority Conservative government, headed by PM Stephen Harper.

There are a number of maneuvers available to PM Harper to avoid the no confidence vote. One is to “prorogue” the Parliament for a month with the permission of the Governor General of Canada. This is essentially equivalent to adjourning Parliament. With the holiday season coming on us, this may be the likeliest course action Harper will chose, assuming that the Governor General of Canada accedes to Harper’s request.

The other course of action would be for PM Harper to ask the Governor General of Canada to dissolve Parliament and call for new elections. In light of the fact that Canada has already had a number of Federal elections in the last few years, including one that just took place 7 weeks ago, this does not seem likely to happen.

All of this wrangling makes for quite interesting political theater, newspaper fodder, and water cooler talk. However, I think that this may possibly impact, at least in the short term, whether Washington wants to deal with Canada on NAFTA and on the issue of Afghanistan. I think that until a political party has a clear majority in the Canadian Parliament, Washington will be wary. When you consider personality and political factors, Washington, under an Obama administration, will be even more wary.

Let’s start with PM Stephen Harper.

(1) Currently, he is the head of a minority Conservative government. That fact alone may give one pause. On Oct 14th, when the recent Federal elections took place, the Conservative was seen to have strengthened their position by increasing the number of seats in Parliament but still falling short of a majority. Due to the fact that the opposition on the left end of the political spectrum appeared to be disorganized and at odds with one another, many assumed that Harper’s minority Conservative government was safe and could do pretty much what they wanted, as long as they were able to make deals with opposing MPs to pass legislation. That assumption was safe until last week when Harper and his Finance Minister released an economic plan that was viewed by many as very partisan. This had the effect of enraging and uniting the left end of the spectrum. Together, they would form a majority. Harper’s course of action with regard to the partisan economic plan has left many people scratching their heads. He’s only the head of a minority government during one of the worst financial crises since the 1930’s. What was he thinking ?

There are reports that members of the Conservative party are unhappy with Harper’s political misjudgment. It remains to be seen whether that unhappiness translates into action.

This is not the first time that Harper has shown bad political judgment. If he survives this current crisis, Washington may very well ask themselves “considering that he heads a minority government and his track record, what will be the next political misjudgment that might endanger his government ?”

(2) That leads to another political misjudgment by PM Harper. Earlier, he had, for political reasons (having to do with Quebec), appointed Maxime Bernier as the Foreign Minister for his government. By all accounts, Bernier was not qualified for this job and events would borne this out in the aftermath of the Julie Coulliard scandal. To put it mildly, Couillard is a buxom stunning looking woman that Bernier had fallen for. She also had ties to Hell’s Angels. While dating Couillard, Bernier evidently left sensitive documents dealing with NATO strategy in Afghanistan laying around in Couillard’s apartment. Of course, this was a serious breach of security as well as a stunning lack of judgment. Bernier was dumped from his job. Still, one has to go back to the roots of Harper’s decision to appoint Bernier to this job in the first place. Again, what was Harper thinking ?

As a result of this episode, Washington could say to themselves “Can we trust Harper’s judgment here ?” In light of his political misjudgment of last week and the Bernier affair, it’s hard to say.

(3) Then there’s Harper’s public pledge to pull Canadian troops out of Afghanistan by 2011. This runs contrary to Obama’s intention to shift troops from Iraq to Afghanistan. Afghanistan is deteriorating due to the incompetence and inattention of the Bush administration. The Mumbai terror attacks of last week adds more urgency to the situation. According to news reports, the Pakistanis may react to India’s post Mumbai moves by shifting troops from the Pakistan/Afghanistan border to the Pakistan/India border. If that happens, that will relieve the pressure/stress on the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the hinterlands between Afghanistan and Pakistan. This will make Afghanistan more unstable.

So, Washington will probably conclude that they will need more troops to battle the Taliban and will need to turn to more countries for help. Can they count on Canada in light of Harper’s pledge ?

(4) As recited in the previous post, there was the leaked NAFTA memo by associates of Harper’s that attempted to embarrass Obama and probably contributed to his defeat in the Ohio Democratic primary.

Conclusion: If Stephen Harper survives the current political crisis, I would expect relations between the Obama administration and Harper’s government to be very cool, at arm’s length and with some mistrust mixed in. One cannot know if Harper will make another misjudgment that will endanger his minority government once again and therefore, it would make it difficult for Washington to work with an unreliable government.

However, things are not that much better with Stephane Dion as the head of a proposed Coalition government. More in the next post !