Even in the first blush of early love between the coalition partners, it was a bit of a stretch that Stephane Dion would ever rest his head on a pillow inside 24 Sussex Drive.
When ‘enviroman’ did his YouTube bit on national television, defending the coalition and promising his unholy alliance of central Canadian interests would lead the country out of these dark economic times, any hope he had of becoming prime minister evaporate like Conservative support in Quebec.
What a difference a couple of weeks make. Stephane doesn’t even get to hang on till May to hand the party over to a new ‘elected’ leader. He’s out and ‘Iggy’ pops in to rally the troops and save the day.
If you think Dion has had the rug pulled out from under him, consider how Prime Minister Stephen Harper is feeling. A few weeks back he was putting the boots to the opposition, threatening to deny them public funds to run election campaigns. Now he’s fighting for his political life.
Recent polls put him neck and neck with new the Liberal leader, Michael Ignatieff, who still pays lip service to the coalition. But this experiment in political brinksmanship is as good as dead. The Conservatives will table a budget Iggy and his troops can support, and life on Parliament Hill will go on much as it has these past years.
It has always been a bit of a mystery why the Liberals would want to govern during a recession, when they can sit on the sidelines, throwing broadsides at the Conservatives for this or that failing, while rebuilding their fortunes for the next election.
Canadians have had enough political turmoil in the past month to last them 20 years. But in true Canadian fashion, in the end nothing happened. Cooler heads prevailed. A good thing too.
Harper is right that a coalition government would spark a national unity crisis. This time, though, it would be the West, and not Quebec, that would be outraged. They’d have every right to be.
As an addendum, it’s too bad Bob Rae never really got a crack at the Liberal leadership. Even though his history with Ontario always made him a long shot at becoming prime minister, he’s an intelligent and charismatic individual who could keep Harper on the ropes for hours in any debate.
It would have made for a heck of campaign. It almost would have been fun.
