...I think it would be, Jane, I think if we, behind closed doors (laughs), if you had a group of people getting together and anointing themselves as the people who going to choose a new permanent leader, think there a an awful lot of party members who would feel that they were not being consulted, they were not being listened to.
...I think there is going to be a problem if some people decide that they can somehow anoint themselves as the people who are going to force the issue in that way. I think that would be a mistake. I think that would be unwise to do so. I think there would be a tremendous reaction in the party against that kind of approach.

All that being said, I think that the Liberals would make a mistake if they don't let their membership decide who the next leader should be. Mr Rae is correct in saying there would be a tremendous reaction to that kind of approach, the same tremendous reaction to the coalition that sees Conservatives support testing the 50% level in popular support.

Update: The irony continues. Check out ProgressiveBloggers.ca for people who favour the coaliton going batty over Ignatieff being installed as the interim leader of the Liberals (with a follow-up vote at the May convention). It seems to me that their position is that MPs can be trusted to pick a leader of a coalition, who would be become leader of the country, but MPs cannot be trusted to pick the leader of their own party. Again, I can't follow the logic.

Update II: And Rae's unintended irony continues here.

If the Governor-General forces the coalition to bring in an immediate budget (one that would have to be before the Conservatives were planning in January) and then force an election after the budget has fully passed then Parliaments will can be done by removing the Conservatives and bringing in their own stimulus program and then the citizens will can be done by passing judgment on the coalition. It is brilliant.

Instant Update: And if Bourque's sources are to be believed then this deal may be unraveling already.

Update: Bourque is headling speculation from Lowell Green that "If coalition forms gvt, Tory MPs may resign en masse ...". I seriously doubt that they would do that and it sounds like an angry Tory let their mouth get ahead of their brain.

...What, beyond pummelling vulnerable opponents, was Harper thinking when he used Thursday's fiscal update to advance Conservative hegemony with a homicidal assault on public funding for political parties. What, in this era of quasi-presidential federal politics, infected Liberals with the viral notion that Dion, judged too weak for high office last month, can now provide the legitimacy, let alone the political skills, the coalition requires to be credible or survive?
...Coalition partners went hunting for that sanction yesterday by promising the economic stimulus missing from the fiscal update. A good start, that's no substitute for a leader able to hold together a loose association of rivals or win the country's consent to be governed.
It is my opinion that this coalition needs the country's consent. If they fail to get then it becomes doubly important for the new Liberal leader, who inherits the Prime

And I have sent an email to the Governor-General asking her for such an immediate election.

As with not voting for Ignatieff the Canadian people did not vote for a coalition government, it was not even on the table. It was a notion that forcefully rejected by the Liberal leader as bad for the economic state of the country. We have no idea what the policies of such a coalition government would be other than it will be "progressive". We have not been given the opportunity to judge such a program for ourselves but will be forced to take the "Four Wisemen's" word for it.

Do I really need to point out that this whole thing hands the Bloc Quebecois another raison d'etre. This does not lessen the influence of a separatist party in Ottawa but rather feeds into their argument that they are required to look after "Quebec's interest" and if they can't break up the country in the process then that is their gravy. What do the Liberals and NDP have to give the BQ for their support? Good luck campaigning against them in the next election.

Are there no "progressives" who worry about wrenching power from a duly elected Western-based party in favour of a Toronto-Quebec coalition? Say hello to a forceful western separtist party - isn't balkanization wonderful!

Are there no Liberals worried about getting trounced in the next election for attempting such a thing? I support the oppositions right to do this but aren't "progressives" just a little worried about how bad this whole thing looks?

Update: So I was too quite on the whole Ignatieff thing. It looks like Stephane Dion will the leader of the coalition. I feel better about this than having Ignatieff being the leader since Dion was at least the leader of the Linerals during the last election. Too bad he led them to their worst percentage vote share in history and that his own party didn't want him to be their leader anymore. Perfect candidate to lead the whole country. These are insane days. I hope the Governor-General allows us to have an election so we can pass our own verdict on this coalition.

Update II: I found a "progressive" who is against this.

...The tape also reveals some dissension among New Democrats on the notion of forming a coalition.
MP Charlie Angus can be heard saying that NDP efforts to win over the Liberals, rather than the public, are "insane" and "disastrous."

Update III: Here is a blogger thinking this whole thing through (h/t SmallDeadAnimals)

Such a scenario is part of our Westminster system. To be against the opposition parties forming a coalition is to be against the way we are governed. I don't see any need to change the system (well, same system but with electoral reform, but that is another story). I don't think that a Liberal-NDP coalition will provide good governance during this economic downturn but there are fully within their rights to defeat the government and try to form one of their own.

However, the Liberals and NDP have less combined seats than the Conservatives so without explicit support from the BQ it will be a very short-lived coaltion government. And they can't exactly bring a separatist party into the coalition. Another fact against the coalition is that the Liberals were firmly against a coalition in the last campaign. But the Conservatives didn't mention anything about reforming the funding of political parties either - hence the title of the post. I should also be pointed out the electorate soundly rejected the Stephane Dion led Liberal Party.

For these reasons the Governor-General could say no to the opposition parties and cause us to have another election. I wouldn't put money on it though. If the GG says yes to a opposition coalition it is not a "coup d'etat" or an afront to democracy. It is also not an afront to democracy to end the $1.95/vote/year subsidizing of political parties. What is unfolding right now is one of the features of our Parliamentary democracy, not a bug.

Since I don't think a Liberal-NDP coalition can last very long and the Liberals are already on record as saying such a coaltion would be bad for the Canadian economy my preference is for the GG to say no to the coaltion and have an immediate election. But I won't be marching in the streets if she disagrees with me. Especially since this whole mess is PM Harper's in the first place.

...Strikingly, in his first outing as the leader of a united Conservative party, in 2004, Mr. Harper failed to win to as many votes as the old Progressive Conservative and Canadian Alliance parties combined. Many former PCs found themselves more at home with the Martin-led Liberal Party than with the Harper-led Conservatives. But this has not been sustained. And the traffic has been in the other direction ever since.
...a significant number of people said they had voted Liberal in 2006 but were switching to another party this time. Where did they go? Nearly 44 per cent of them said they were moving to the Conservatives. Thus, the Liberals' largest loss in the last election was to the Conservatives -- not to the NDP or the Greens.

...The proliferating polls - daily, nightly and rolling; by phone and by internet - dominated a great deal of the media coverage of the two elections. Poll results provided such an inexhaustible supply of news stories and fodder for commentaries, candidates and their platforms seemed to disappear at times in the blizzard (or fog) of polling coverage.