Is a Government Elected Based on Deception Legitimate?

I’ve seen a lot of talk about how a Liberal-NDP coalition would lack legitimacy in the eyes of the public, but I think an honest look of the whole picture should ask as well is what kind of legitimacy does Stephen Harper have? In the real world if you applied for a job based on a falsified resume and the people that hired you found this out, you’d be fired in an instant. And the company probably wouldn’t start a whole new job search, they’d probably go to their next choice of applicant and ask if he/she was still available to take on the job.

While politics isn’t the business world, since Stephen Harper used the CEO metaphor in a very stretched attempt to frame the Liberal platform as irresponsible (he said if Stéphane Dion were a CEO he would be fired for his platform), I’d like to run with it for a minute to lay the stage for the context we face this week in Parliament. Let’s say Stephen Harper was made CEO of a major Canadian company in January of 2006 but at least in theory remained accountable to a board of directors (MPs) and occasionally shareholders (the electorate). So he starts off making some bizarre and costly decisions that sap up a good portion of the company’s revenue arguing that “target markets” will love it and that profits (surplus) remain high anyways so there’s no reason for the board to worry. Besides Harper says “who needs profits, that just means we are over-charging consumers”. And so this continues for a couple years and while many on the board grumbled that he was driving the company into a ditch as profits were finally starting to steadily decline in 2008, they were comforted that he would face a review by shareholders. When the shareholder review came Harper spends most of his presentation railing against his main competitor to replace him as CEO arguing that he’s proposing all sorts of crazy schemes and that while the other guy would ruin the company, Harper would bring large profits and continued success. So Harper wins the review and carries on. However, his first major act following the review is to propose to cut the salaries of all the majority of board members that he deemed disloyal. The majority of the board finally revolts but then Harper cancels all board meetings for 7 weeks and vows to come back with a real plan this time to rescue the company and at that time the board can vote on whether he gets to continue as CEO. Right after he cancels the board meeting Harper pronounces that the profits he said the company was going to have won’t pan out after all, instead the company is billions in the red, but he hopes the board can forgive that oversight because “no one could see it coming” (despite the many warnings Harper received BEFORE his review). So in that situation what should the board do when they have their vote of confidence?

And that metaphor doesn’t even get in to all the terrible ethics of this government and their various scandals. Now obviously politics is not like the business world (and I know that example is not really how a company works), but you get the picture that this PM hasn’t exactly been managing the country’s “business” so well. Taking all this into consideration it’s more than legitimate to bring them down and replace them with a coalition, or if need be, to defeat them in an election. Either way we would have more stable and sound government for the next few years than we have now.

And you don’t have to use business examples to justify it either. If Ernie Eves had won a minority in 2003 and it was then discovered soon after (as it was by the McGuinty Liberals) that Harris/Eves/Flaherty and Co. covered up a $6 billion deficit I have no doubt the Liberals and NDP would have joined forces to vote them out and form a coalition. And they would have won the public relations war over doing so too. So the Bloc complicates things a little in the federal case but it’s no less justified and they are not part of the coalition anyway and the Liberals and NDP got more votes in the last election than did the Conservatives.

But I do believe we’ve once again seen a cover-up of the deficit by some of the same people that did it in Ontario and we can’t let that slide easily. My honest belief is that Stephen Harper went into the election knowing the books were a mess and hoped he would get a majority so that the public would never find out and he could just cover it up like the Ontario PC’s did. He had access to civil service forecasts none of the oppositions parties did, I’m sure he knew more than he let on. Yet he portrayed an image that the Canadian economy and government finances were in sound shape when literally days after the election he was singing the opposite tune. For that I feel this was a government elected based on deception and since Harper wasn’t given the majority he wanted, it’s the duty of the majority of the House of Commons to hold him to account. It’s the duty of Stephen Harper to do everything he can to ensure he enjoys the confidence of a majority of MPs the public elected and so far he’s done the opposite of what’s necessary to do that.

All that said, it’s very easy for me act like it’s easy choice to make to bring this government down, but I know I’m not one of the Liberal MPs who’s been deluded by angry anti-coalition calls . I’m not the one who has to be worried about the possibility that the Governor General might not allow a coalition and/or whether my re-election are actually threatened by entering into one in the middle of a major recession. And I know the Liberals don’t have the resources the Conservatives do to combat all the lies Harper and Co. are spreading. I think Liberals know a coalition would be justified and better for our country or that perhaps so would an election now be too, but ultimately they serve the public that elected them and you can’t blame for being concerned about what their constituents would like them to do. And the Liberals might not feel they are as prepared for an election as they'd like to be since we can't be 100% certain the Governor General will allow a coalition (even though every single precedent would compel her to).

But even though there are risks in bringing down Stephen Harper’s government let’s not let ourselves think for a second that that Liberals don’t have a very persuasive case for doing so. Stephen Harper has failed again and again and again and again, how many chances does he really deserve? The public has been given a biased picture and if Stephen Harper goes down I believe we will be able to successfully make our case for why it was needed whether that results in an election or a coalition.

Given the times we face and the public’s dwindling patience for all the commotion in Ottawa I’m personally willing to give one last one this week, but I’m not hopeful he’ll meet the monumental bar he really does have to exceed here to warrant survival.

If Stephen Harper proves he’s undergone a genuine change for the better in how he runs his government and he puts out a budget that actually is sound economic policy suited for our times (I’ll have more to say about what such a budget would look like before it's presented tomorrow), then he can survive, failing that, given his record, Canada and politics in general are better off with him as far away from power as possible.

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