Gillard retains power in Australia

She's got enough support from the independents to hang on:

Prime Minister Julia Gillard says she will pump almost $10 billion into regional programs after today scraping back into power with the support of two key independents.

Ms Gillard has pledged to work tirelessly for the Australian people and says she will try and find common ground with the Coalition as Labor heads into its second term in government.

Two independents today broke the political deadlock by giving their votes to Ms Gillard in a Labor minority Government. She has advised Governor-General Quentin Bryce of the developments.

After more than a fortnight of suspense, Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor revealed their intention to give Labor their crucial votes, meaning it has secured the 76 seats needed to rule.

The third independent, Bob Katter, had earlier decided to support the Coalition but it was not enough to install Tony Abbott as prime minister.

From the ABC.

Some words Harper may have to eat

He says there'll be a coalition unless he wins a majority:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, intent on shaping the ballot box question for the next election, is adopting a strategy to gradually persuade voters they have a "stark choice" in the next campaign: a "stable" majority Conservative government, or a "coalition" government of Liberals, New Democrats and Quebec separatists.

From the Calgary Herald. So, Steve, when the next election comes and you still have only a minority of the seats, will you step aside and let the opposition form a government? Can we take that as a promise?

Independents win significant concessions in Australia

It looks like the major parties are willing to do quite a lot to get the support of the independents:

They just had to ask. The three country independents got all they wanted from the PM. Tony Abbott's response was a little more qualified but they did well out of him too. There's nothing like desperation to make leaders generous to a fault to those whose support they need.

The most fundamental concession is that both Gillard and Abbott say they would not have an election before August 2013. Gillard is even willing to ''work with'' the independents in setting the precise date.

For those used to Victoria's fixed term, this mightn't seem much. But federally, terms are flexible and the PM's ability to decide election timing is an important power. Giving it away is no small thing.

From the Sydney Morning Herald. What's interesting, though, is what Abbott is not willing to agree to:

The scrapping today, however, will be over what Abbott would not agree to - the independents want his promises officially costed.

It's not surprising he is resisting this. If Treasury/Finance found holes in them - as is very likely - this would undermine not just Abbott's credibility but his pitch to the independents.

Interesting. And the fact that Gillard has not resisted this doesn't exactly make Abbott look very good... but assuming some coalition appears, that won't matter (it will probably be forgotten by the time the next election rolls around in three years). I'm inclined to think Gillard will ultimately get the nod from the independents actually; despite being ex-Nationals, they seem to be on poor terms with their former colleagues. Also, a Labour government could accomplish much more than a Liberal-National one, because the Greens hold the balance of power in the Senate and thus a Liberal-National government would have a hard time getting legislation through the upper house.

The thing is, whoever does form the government will likely have a majority of one, which will make for some interesting times. If nothing else, MPs on both sides of the house are likely to have excellent attendance in the next three years...

A side note -- those unfamiliar with the quirks of Australia's political system may find the coverage of this minority parliament particularly confusing, because the possibility exists of the independents forming a coalition with the Coalition. The existence of a long-term coalition between the urban and rural right (the Liberals and Nationals respectively) seems to be made possible by instant-runoff voting; the Liberals and Nationals simply trade preferences, whereas they'd be spoilers for each other under FPTP.

And a further tangent from that -- how would IRV play out if introduced in this country? I'm not entirely sure. At the federal level I suspect it would lead to a lot of NDP-Liberal coalitions, though at the provincial level I could see the Manitoba Liberals supporting the Tories rather than the NDP.

Credit where credit is due

I'm not particularly keen on the Cameron-Clegg coalition in the UK, but they're doing the right thing here:

In a bold if lonely environmental stand, Britain’s coalition government has set out to curb the growth of what has been called “binge flying” by refusing to build new runways around London to accommodate more planes.

Citing the high levels of greenhouse gas emissions from aviation, Prime Minister David Cameron, a Conservative, abruptly canceled longstanding plans to build a third runway at Heathrow Airport in May, just days after his election; he said he would also refuse to approve new runways at Gatwick and Stansted, London’s second-string airports.

The government decided that enabling more flying was incompatible with Britain’s oft-stated goal of curbing emissions. Britons have become accustomed to easy, frequent flying — jetting off to weekend homes in Spain and bachelor parties in Prague — as England has become a hub for low-cost airlines. The country’s 2008 Climate Change Act requires it to reduce emissions by at least 34 percent by 2020 from levels reached in 1990.

From the New York Times. Conservatives around the world should take note -- even they can't continue to ignore environmental issues. How this will play out remains to be seen, but it could conceivably make it OK for conservatives to be environmentalists. And that can't be anything but a Good Thing, regardless of one's views on conservatism as a whole.

In fact, if you think about it, conservatives ought to be environmentalists. Few things are more destructive of traditional ways of living than famines and shortages.

Coalition would do well with right leadership - poll

The latest Angus Reid poll suggests that an NDP-Liberal coalition could gain substantial support from the public, depending on who led it:

In one respect, the results of an Angus Reid poll to be released on Monday are not surprising — the Conservatives are at 35 per cent, the Liberals at 27 and the NDP are at 19 per cent; in Quebec, the Bloc leads with 37 per cent.

However, the poll also asked Canadians how they would vote if the Liberals and NDP went to the polls offering Canadians a coalition government, and here things get interesting.

According to the results published in Monday’s edition of La Presse, the Conservatives led by Stephen Harper would defeat a coalition led by Michael Ignatieff 40-34 per cent.

With Bob Rae as Liberal leader, the coalition and Conservatives would be tied.

However, if the coalition were to propose Jack Layton as prime minister, according to the Reid poll, it could defeat the Conservatives by 43-37 per cent.

From the Globe. I don't expect this to happen, but it's an interesting result. If nothing else, it sends a message to the Liberals about their leadership...

Iggy adopts Steve's attitude to cooperation

So now Ignatieff has ruled out a coalition as well:

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff vowed Friday that his party would never enter into a governing coalition and said he could make Parliament work without such a deal.

"In January, we did not support a coalition, and we do not support a coalition today or tomorrow," Ignatieff told reporters in Ottawa.

Ignatieff said he wouldn't need to form a parliamentary pact because, unlike Prime Minister Stephen Harper, he doesn't treat political adversaries as enemies.

Source. I don't know, saying you'll never form a coalition, no matter what, sounds a lot like treating your adversaries as enemies to me. Fair enough to say, "we have no plans to form a coalition at this stage", but to categorically reject the idea seems a bit extreme.

To be fair, the idea of a coalition has been badly smeared over the last year, so it's understandable that Iggy might see it as something best avoided, but I think it would be a lot more constructive to try to sell the public on the idea. Most of Europe is governed by coalition governments most of the time, for instance. Of course, most of Europe has proportional representation, so the parties know from the start that they're unlikely to ever get a majority government. The prospect of that tends to focus the mind wonderfully. But as long as the Bloc is a major player, majority governments are pretty unlikely here, too, so it's high time the Liberals and Conservatives acknowledged that fact. Maybe then we could make Parliament work.

What Steve says in private

As we know, Canadians -- even those who are willing to support the Conservatives out of hatred of the Liberals -- are leery of giving them a majority. You've doubtless noticed the fact that they never seem to say the M-word in public. In front of the party faithful, though, it's a different story:

Of course, all the leaders (except Gilles) want a majority, but Harper's unwillingness to talk about it in public is telling. And when he talks about how a coalition will surely arise if the Cons don't get what they want (far from clear, but never mind), his followers take it for granted that this would be an utterly evil thing. Never mind that Harper's European counterparts like Angela Merkel would never think of trying to run a minority government on their own... his message seems to be "Vote for me, and I promise I will not cooperate with anyone". Nice.

ETA: the whole speech can be found here; hat tip to A BCer in Toronto.

Harper willing to talk with Ignatieff to avoid election

Not a big surprise:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he is willing to meet Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff to discuss his demands to avoid triggering a summer election, including further changes to the country's employment insurance system.

But Harper insisted Ignatieff was not taking a "realistic approach," saying major changes to EI "cannot be done on the back of an envelope in a few days."

He instead called for "dialogue" with Ignatieff over the summer on potential EI changes to be introduced in the fall.

“Mr. Ignatieff said he doesn’t want an election,” Harper told reporters Monday afternoon at the National Press Theatre in Ottawa.

“I don’t want an election. I don’t think anybody wants an election.”

He's right about that, of course; few people in this country want another election right now. So it's a reasonably safe bet that Harper and/or Ignatieff will compromise on this position. Hopefully this will result from Harper backing down, rather than Ignatieff.

When you think about it, Jack Layton wasn't far wrong when he said this:

"We have a new coalition now on Parliament Hill -- it's a coalition between Mr. Harper and Mr. Ignatieff," Layton said shortly after Ignatieff announced his conditional support for the Tory budget.

He's not the first person to say this, of course; I seem to recall a columnist saying the same thing a couple of years before, because of the number of times the Liberals supported the Tories on confidence votes. That's not to say I want an election right now either, but I do hope Ignatieff doesn't sell his support too cheaply. (Yes, I know that strictly speaking it's not a coalition, since the Liberals didn't get any cabinet seats, but the effect is pretty similar).

Why the Liberals pulled out of the coalition

As we all know, after Harper prorogued Parliament last fall to avoid a non-confidence vote, the Liberals backed out as soon as the prorogue ended. Well, it seems that as a result of Lisa Raitt's recent difficulties, some very interesting things have come to light. Close to the bottom of the article, we find this:

Later in her conversation with Ms. MacDonnell, Ms. Raitt tells the man driving them around Victoria that Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff had backed down from defeating the Conservative government on a budget a few days earlier because he got a message from Canadian bankers.

“They did it at the Canadian Council of (Chief) Executives, there was three presidents of major banks who stood up in the room — and this is not from cabinet so I can talk about it — stood up and said, ‘Ignatieff, don’t you even think about bringing us to an election,’” said Ms. Raitt.

“'We don’t need this. We have no interest in this. And we will never fund your party again.’ That was very powerful. So he heard it from very powerful people in the industry. He was definitely muzzled.”

Liberal finance critic John McCallum, who was present for the closed-door Jan. 20 meeting with about 100 executives, says they were against the coalition and an election, but there was “not even a hint of a veiled threat,” and bankers would never make such a threat in a meeting with so many people present.

So let's get this straight. A Minister of the Crown casually discussed a blackmail threat against the Leader of the Official Opposition. And the body making the threat was a bunch of CEOs, many of whom Raitt is almost certainly acquainted with in the course of her career. Not to mention, Raitt's party is the chief beneficiary of the blackmail. Surely this qualifies as extortion, doesn't it?

346. (1) Every one commits extortion who, without reasonable justification or excuse and with intent to obtain anything, by threats, accusations, menaces or violence induces or attempts to induce any person, whether or not he is the person threatened, accused or menaced or to whom violence is shown, to do anything or cause anything to be done.

Criminal Code of Canada. Just sayin'.

Iggy and Steve patch up their differences

Not a big surprise:

The Liberal party will only support the minority Conservative government's federal budget if Prime Minister Stephen Harper agrees to an amendment calling for a "clear marker" of regular updates to Parliament on the impact of economic stimulus projects, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said Wednesday.

The move by Ignatieff appears to have staved off the immediate defeat of the Tories. Hours after Ignatieff's news conference, Tory House Leader Jay Hill said the government has no problem with the amendment.

"The government will be supporting the Liberal amendment to the budget," Hill told reporters. "We're very pleased as well the Liberals have decided to support our budget. We look forward to working cooperatively with them."

From the CBC. I think Jack Layton put it best:

Layton refused to specify whether the coalition between the Liberals and NDP was dead, saying only that: "We have a new coalition on Parliament Hill. It’s a coalition between Mr. Harper and Mr. Ignatieff."

Of course, the coalition was always a hard sell with the public, but I guess we'll have to put up with Steve for a while yet.

To be fair, not everything in the budget is totally awful, but the pros are often very mixed. Take the environmental initiatives therein:

The federal budget contained more than $3 billion in spending to address the environment, but it fell short of markers set by those who had called on the Conservatives to deliver a "green" economic stimulus plan.

The big-ticket items, including a $1 billion fund aimed at developing clean technologies over the next five years and a program to help pay for environmentally sustainable infrastructure, also worth $1 billion, were announced prior to yesterday.

The budget also included $300 million to expand an existing home retrofit program that gives grants for improvements to energy efficiency, $10 million to better monitor water and air quality and greenhouse gas emissions, and $292 million to help develop the Candu nuclear reactor and operate the Chalk River facility.

"The provisions in the budget relating to the environment are very significant," Environment Minister Jim Prentice told the Star. "When you add all this up, it's certainly the largest green stimulus that we've ever seen."

But critics say the federal government's plans fall far short of national public transit and other infrastructure needs while spending too much taxpayers' money in Alberta's oil sands and not enough on renewable energy.

"The only green measures in this budget ... of any importance go to nukes or carbon capture and storage," said Stephen Gilbeault of Montreal-based Equiterre.

From the Star. While I'm not as negative about those technologies as some, they have some serious issues. Besides the well-known concerns about nuclear waste, there's the fact that nuclear plants are ridiculously expensive and take a long time to build. Think of how many wind turbines and solar panels that could be built in the time taken to build a nuclear plant. In some parts of the world they might still be necessary (i.e. in places where there isn't enough hydroelectric capacity to stabilize the grid) but most of Canada has no need of additional nuclear plants. As for carbon capture, it's still pretty much hypothetical at this stage.

There is one bright spot in the budget, though. Maybe:

There is a good chance no one was applauding the federal government's decision to provide $50-million Institute for Quantum Computing in Tuesday's budget announcement louder than Research In Motion co-chief executive officer Mike Lazaridis.

The Institute was the brainchild of Mr. Lazaridis as well as several other researchers who founded the group in 1999 to advance the University of Waterloo's research and international standing in the areas of computer, engineering, mathematical and physical sciences.

From the National Post. Maybe this will enable us to be a world leader in something. Hopefully, though, we'll turf Harper soon, and move back in the direction of being a world leader in things we're known for (such as peacekeeping, social programs, etc), while keeping such nice research institutes as the aforementioned one. Surely we can do both?

Skeletons tumbling out of Tory closets

The pot has been calling the oregano green yet again, it seems:

The separatist Bloc Québécois was part of secret plotting in 2000 to join a formal coalition with the two parties that now make up Stephen Harper's government, according to documents obtained by The Globe and Mail.

The scheme, designed to propel current Conservative minister Stockwell Day to power, undermines the Harper government's line this week that it would never sign a deal like the current one between the Liberal Party, the NDP and the Bloc.

Bloc officials said that well-known Calgary lawyer Gerry Chipeur sent a written offer before the votes were counted on election day on Nov. 27, 2000.

From the Globe and Mail. No big shock here. The Tory apologists, though, are getting desperate, as evidenced by some of the comments:

Why can't people understand the difference between making contingency plans and actually putting those plans into action?

Secondly, I don't see what the relevance is of plans made by the former leader of a now defunct party.

Right. The "defunct" party has nothing to do with the present party - it changed its name when it took over the PC party! Why can't the "liberal media" see this? And Stockboy is just a cabinet minister now, not the head honcho! Well sure, whatever you are inclined to believe I guess...

Do the Tories have another trick up their sleeves?

Andrew Steele thinks they might:

"We will use all legal means to resist this undemocratic seizure of power," Prime Minister Stephen Harper said yesterday.

Here are the ten options the Prime Minister is likely reviewing:

1. Preemptively Remove Michaëlle Jean

This is the true nuclear option for Harper: a preemptive strike against Jean to remove her from office, and replace her with a governor-general sympathetic to the argument that the people should decide in an election.

The roots of this option are found in the last major constitutional crisis in a British Parliamentary democracy, the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis.

I'll let you review all the background in this excellent Wikipedia article, but the key passage for our purposes is this:

"(Governor-General) Kerr was unwilling to warn (Prime Minister) Whitlam that he was contemplating dismissing him, fearing that Whitlam's reaction would be to advise Elizabeth II, the Queen of Australia, to remove him as Governor-General instead - advice the Queen would be compelled by convention to follow. Though this might appear to be an unlikely proposition, it was constitutionally possible, and in the peculiar circumstances of the crisis could not have been ruled out."

Interesting, and worrisome. Could they actually put their own stooge in place of Ms. Jean? That wouldn't look good on them in the long run, of course, but it would force the opposition to reconsider their short term options.

Twilight of the Tories

It really looks like it's happening:

The Liberals and New Democrats signed an agreement on Monday to form an unprecedented coalition government, with a written pledge of support from the Bloc Québécois, if they are successful in ousting the minority Conservative government in a coming confidence vote.

The accord between parties led by Stéphane Dion, Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe came just hours after Liberal caucus members agreed unanimously that Dion would stay on to lead the Liberal-NDP coalition, with support in the House of Commons from Bloc MPs.

From the CBC. The full text of the agreement is here. The Reformatories are now panicking, of course, but I really think they went too far when they covertly taped an NDP conference call. That sort of shit tends to undermine any remaining credibility they might have had.

So what now? A coalition is an interesting prospect; the new government will face big challenges, though:

The benchmark TSX index took a record dive Monday, dropping 864.41 points, or 9.3 per cent, to 8,406.21.

The percentage drop was the second-biggest on record, after the 11.3 per cent plunge on Black Monday, Oct. 19, 1987. The TSX point fall broke the record set on Sept. 29, when it fell by 840.93 points.

The Dow Jones industrial average also plummeted, falling 679.95 points, or 7.7 per cent, to 8,149.

Not an easy task governing the country under circumstances like this. The new government will indeed likely have to go into deficit if they hope to significantly soften the economic blows we're likely to be taking in the next few years.