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December 02, 2008

More on the coalition

Posted by Daniel Tseghay at 04:14 PM ET

The Liberal-NDP coalition has great support among the countless disillusioned by the Conservative Party. The Conservative's recent proposals for a "three-year ban on the right of civil servants to strike, limits on the ability of women to sue for pay equity and eliminated subsidies for political parties" struck many the wrong way - notwithstanding the party's eventual reversal on their subsidies decision and ban on civil servant strikes.

Yet despite this, there might be at least one sufficient reason to withdraw one's support for the coalition: it's arguably undemocratic. In today's Globe and Mail, Janice MacKinnon, professor of public policy at the University of Saskatchewan and a former NDP finance minister, had this to say about a coaltion she would normally be inclined to support:

"as a Western Canadian, I fear the reaction of most in this region should they awake one morning to find the Conservative Party, which won 72 of 92 seats in the West just weeks ago, replaced by a coalition with a prime minister from the Liberal Party, the party that came third in every province in Western Canada. This would be especially dismaying since the election results weren't even close: The Conservatives won 37 per cent of the vote and 66 more seats than their nearest rivals."

We might want Harper out, and we might even believe the coalition would work, but we should also keep in mind the way everyone voted.

More entries on: On the Hill

Previous: ThisAbility #7: Not all Buildings are Created Equal
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