Evening Star

It wouldn't be a bad idea but the OP seems false. If this were true, the Liberals would leave Outremont alone instead of contesting it aggressively.

To be clear, Quebec currently only accounts for 75/308 or 24.35% of the seats.

Sure. I'm just saying that they don't actually need to make up 30 points in 5 weeks.

That's what they would need for Ignatieff to tie Harper as most trusted leader, not for the Liberals to win the election. Ed Broadbent was the most popular leader in the 80s but that didn't mean the NDP ever won a federal election.

It's not always a matter of what the party wants though. I mean, the NDP does run candidates in my parents' riding but they never run very strong candidates or make a really concerted effort to win that riding. xpost to punked

Enjoyed this: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/public-opinion-turns-when-you-least-expect-it/article1955536/

Definitely agree about the contempt issue... But do you really think Canadians are too dumb to understand the in/out issue?

Seems quite possible. The Opposition should work the in-and-out issue too.

Not from 2004 but: http://www2.macleans.ca/2008/11/28/a-trip-down-minority-government-memory-lane/

Ha, from a strategic POV, I see what you're saying, August.

Ha, while I'm closer to the other end of Canada's ideological spectrum, I did kind of love the idea of a party led by a systems analyst.

I was talking about the (highly theoretical at this point) possibility of the Cons winning a minority, trying to pass the same (or a more conservative) budget, and failing once more. At that point, I think it would be reasonable for the GG to ask the Opposition to form a government.

I dunno, though, do you think Liberal voters would prefer a Conservative government to a Liberal-NDP coalition? Maybe some...

They don't even necessarily need to form a coalition. They could just govern with the assent of the third and fourth parties.

Again, why does everyone seem to ignore the Liberal-NDP Accord in ON in the 80s? The party with the most seats couldn't maintain the Provincial Parliament's confidence so the party with the second-highest number governed with the support of the third party. It was popular and successful. (Now, some mitigating factors are that the Liberals did better in the popular vote iirc and the difference in seats between them and the PCs was quite small.)

So instead the elected Parliament should be blackmailed into bending over and accepting whatever the minority government wants to pass? And this will not precipitate any anger elsewhere in the country? BS. Admittedly, I don't really remember what the reaction was out west. As far as I can tell, though, the Alberta separatist movement has virtually no political representation, right? Even the Quebec separatist movement has not been able to produce any major constitutional change in decades.

Why would that precipitate a constitutional crisis? We had something similar in Ontario from 1985-1987.

Some sort of coalition, or government led by the party with the second-most seats, would be an alternative.

Ha, I never really noticed Ignatieff's New England-ish vowels on "talk" and "caucus" before.

But, assuming we get a similar Con minority, why would the NDP need to support such a budget the second time? A minority government still needs to govern with some Opposition support.

I know. I can still have reservations about them.

Very persuasive post, Geoffrey.

Isn't that different from actually participating in the 2003 invasion?

A lot can happen during a campaign. Can't really expect the opposition parties to support something for the sake of propping up the government. Having said that, the budget actually sounded OK to me, despite my reservations about tax cuts!

Tbh, since every major party basically supported the mission, I'd assumed it was just and reasonable. Wente actually raises some good points though.