Ten thoughts on a coalition government in Canada

• One, coalition governments do not last as long as single-party minorities, on average. Controlling for electoral system, population, and degree of democracy, minority coalitions (which this would be as the Bloc would not be in the cabinet), last about 275 days less than single-party minorities. Blais and Ricard and I have a little chapter on this here.
• Two, there is no reason why Dion could not be Prime Minister until a Liberal leadership race concludes. It would be unconventional, but it is not much different then when a leader takes power after running in what is publicly acknowledged as their last election.
• Three, the Tories have survived on Bloc support enough times that they cannot legitimately criticize the Liberals for doing the same.
• Four, coalition governments are extremely rare in Canadian politics. They have never occurred at the national level outside of the wartime. There was a coalition between the Saskatchewan Liberals and NDP in the last ten years. Prior to that, it’s been at least 40 years since a coalition at the provincial level.
• Five, strictly speaking this is only a coalition if the NDP receives cabinet seats.
• Six, what is occurring now is roughly equivalent to the investiture votes that occur in many other countries. Indeed, of the 20 countries considered in Laver and Shepsle’s Multiparty Government, nearly half (9) have investiture votes. In other words, in many other countries it is thought strange to allow a government to propose policy before the house has decided to approve that government.
• Seven, coalitions and occasionally protracted negotiations over government formation are normal in many democracies. That it is abnormal in Canada does not make it undemocratic. It merely makes it exceptional. By my lights the combination of three, six and seven suggests that this is not actually undemocratic. We may not like it, but the government is the cabinet that commands the support of the House. It is not the cabinet made up of members who got the most votes in the last election.
• Eight, it will be very hard for the Tories to now back away from this. More importantly, it will be very tough for the opposition to back away now. They’ve taken one step over the cliff.
• Nine, the Tories have asked for this to a certain degree. You cannot threaten to bankrupt your opponents (however much they may deserve it) and propose economic policy that is out of step with other countries and arguably with what Canadians want/or expect and not expect a challenge. The opposition is merely doing their job. They are mandated with opposing the government and presenting a government in waiting. If the Governor-General decides that they are to have a crack at Government then it is their right. If you don’t like it you can punish them at the time of the next election.
• Ten, if the GG decides to call an election it is her prerogative. And it won’t be a waste of money!

Insiders?

I am sitting in Old Montreal watching the National with the Cynic in Chief. There must be something in the water here, because I am seeing things. Rick Anderson and David Herle are on a segment called "The Insiders". And David Herle is talking about how the end of a campaign is full of people outside the party -- pseudo insiders -- talking about what is happening in the race and how it could be done better. I can only assume that they are both taking time away from the campaign rooms to do this show.

Sunday Morning Coming Down

A few thoughts on a beautiful Sunday morning on Point Grey.

1.) The NDP is set to announce a child benefit program worth as much as $400 per month per child. The money will be given directly to parents, will not be taxed, and will continue until children are 18. This is highly significant for two reasons. First, it is clearly more generous than the Tory plan, but also much more generous than the proposed child care plan of the Liberal Party. Layton may well have outplayed Dion by waiting to release this policy. While this is enough to push him into the Official Opposition is clearly in doubt, but it is helpful for at least two reasons. One, it appears pragmatic. Second, Dion is likely to atack Layton for a lack of commitment to creating more child care spaces directly. Layton, of course, will turn around and accuse Dion of holding onto old and failed policies. This makes for another distinction between the Liberals and the NDP and it is to the benefit of the New Democrats. For whatever its merits, the Liberal child care policy of creating spaces was never nearly as popular as its advocates suppose.

The second reason why this announcement is so important is because it marks a sea change in policy away from a large state-directed creation of daycare spaces and towards the direct funding of parents. The merits of either system are debatable, but for what it's worth I was always suspicious about the claims of those who wanted to provide state day care, not because I oppose it in principle but because it sounded highly implausible practically. I guess we won't be finding out for a while anyways.

2.) The debates are this Thursday. It's really a toss-up between the American VP debates and the Canadian English debate. I'll be watching the second as I've been invited to a community event to talk about the debates a bit before hand and then moderate some discussion afterwards. Later this week, I'll post my little spiel explaining what I think they are trying to accomplish.

3.) I am similarly speaking at the Killam Foundation dinner at UBC tomorrow night. I was lucky to win a couple of Killams this year and this dinner is to recognize the UBC winners. I'll be talking about my research and, hopefully, demonstrating how the Killam's contribution to research (and Canada) is so significant.

4.) In between these two events I'll be flying home for a funeral. My Uncle Al died on Thursday night. When I can get through putting my memories of him to paper I shall post them as well. We can't avoid these things for long, even if we preface them with three points of useless front matter. In the meantime, I am off into a Sunday morning hoping I'll find something to take "me back to somethin', That I'd lost somehow, somewhere along the way."

Herle sees rationality where others see luck

Danistan won't do it, so it falls to me. David Herle has quite the piece in the Toronto Star today. Excerpted from his May piece in Policy Options, Herle lays out a strategy by which Stephane Dion can win the next election. It's a rather simple prescription: first, point out that the Conservatives are far to the right of most Canadians; second, highlight Dion's strength as a different type of leader; third, play up the environment.

I want to leave aside discussion of whether these presumptions are even correct. I suspect at least one of them is wrong, but I've never been asked to run a campaign, so what do I know. I do want to highlight a rather ridiculous paragraph halfway through the article. In justifying his claim that Dion should emphasize his different qualities, Herle argues that Dion won the party leadership because:

Liberals wanted, and sensed that Canadians wanted, something different. They sensed that politics in Canada was ready for a new national challenge, something that transcended the machinations of Ottawa politics. In addition to his passion for the environment, Liberals saw in Dion a man of character and an anti-politician as an antidote to the current mode of our politics. After the sponsorship affair, Canadians needed to believe that the Liberal party was about purpose, not jockeying for partisan advantage.


This is ridiculous. This suggests that delegates calculated, once confronted with the binary choice between Dion and Ignatieff, that Dion was somehow the best man for the job all along. He was a new kind of leader and just what the country ordered. If delegates were so rational at the time, then why did less than one-in-five plump for him in the first place? It is simply not true that delegates selected Dion because he was the best choice of all candidates. No, they selected him because he lucked onto a final ballot in which his opponent was very controversial and far outside the mainstream of his party on three key issues: Quebec, fiscal imbalance, and Afghanistan.

I've written in the past of my admiration for Dion and it abides. But admiration shouldn't ignore the facts. Make no mistake: David Herle is very smart. He is probably one of the sharpest political minds in Canada. But I am left to wonder whether reading rationality and brilliance into luck hasn't impaired his judgment, now and in the past.

Bastarache retires

Wayne MacKay is the sensible choice. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

Rent-seeking bloodsuckers

As some of my friends and occassional dinner companions have found out, I don't have the world's most positive view of farmers. Generally, it's a bit of a show, but I do think the evidence is more or less clear that consumers -- especially the poor -- are not well-served by supply management and by the readiness of our politicians to give to farmers subsidies which they do not give to other industries. So, the argument is a bit of put-on because I like being contrarian, and a bit true, because I think the facts are with me. All of that aside, you can be sure I will pull out this article the next time the debate comes up.

It takes no foresight to guess that tobacco demand is going to continue to decline. And it takes no small amount of gumption to complain that "high taxation and anti-smoking policies have had the effect of expropriating their livelihood without compensation." No, all it takes is some incredible romantic sense that one is entitled to compensation because they work in a field as opposed to an office. Never has the term rent-seeking bloodsuckers come so easily to mind.

The Prime Minister, Auschwitz, and Allan Woods Absurd Article

This is an absurd article. Woods never comes out and says it, but he somehow thinks it's wrong that the Prime Minister didn't say anything to reporters after visiting Auschwitz. Instead of giving a speech afterwards, Harper signed a rather eloquent message in a guestbook. As Woods, our intrepid scribe puts it:

That statement was the only clue Canadians have as to what was in Harper's mind as he bore witness to the depravity of Auschwitz, where upward of one million Jews were exterminated, along with more than 100,000 Poles, Gypsies and homosexuals.


What, pray tell, do you think he was thinking? I am guessing, like any human being, that he was overwhelmed by what he saw (indeed, other reports capture his emotional struggle) and wasn't too keen on trying to discuss awful feelings in front of other people. Particularly not someone like Woods. Given the amount of space he's wasted writing on what the Prime Minister didn't say, can you imagine the knots he'd tie if he had said anything?

Woods should take a second to think about whether he is professionally obliged to be critical at every possible opportunity. And then he should do us the favour of not writing about it. No one, I can assure him, will write an article about his silence.

Tom Lukiski on Tape

Tom Lukiski is in a world of trouble. The Tory MP was videotaped, seventeen years ago, making extremely disparaging remarks about homosexuals. These comments resurfaced when the NDP opposition in Saskatchewan found the tape in their new opposition offices.

The remarks are vulgar, ignorant, and delivered in a manner which suggests that they did not just come to the top of his head spontaneously and fully-formed. No, he has the swagger of someone who said similar things, several times, probably always to great effect.

Lukiski has issued an apology which includes the claim "They do not reflect the type of person I am. I do not believe in those types of comments."

Whether or not Lukiski is the type of person who still believes this things is precisely the point, I think. Not whether he used to believe those things. I want to phrase this as precisely as possible: the average man, certainly of Lukiski's vintage, viewed homosexuality and homosexuals much differently than most men today do. Much progress has been made towards greater and deserved tolerance in the last 17 years. In fact, I think we can say a near sea-change of opinion has occurred since broad public discussion over same-sex marriage began in earnest in the last four or five years.

I think this is much to the credit of people of a certain age who grew up with views which were ignorant and wrongheaded but widely-held and believed. If we want to make progress towards greater toleration, then we have to be willing to give people the benefit of the doubt and not to play politics with past intolerance.

So, the important question is this: Does Mr Lukiski still hold these views? And, if not, when did he change them? What was the moment at which he cast them aside as useless, incorrect, and uncivil. Maybe he can't define an exact moment, but he could at least try to explain his progression. Provided he does, the matter should be put aside.

I am open to opinions on this, having given my own.

Byelections and Turnout

A point to begin with: we basically know very little about byelections in Canada. If you'd like to see how confused is our common wisdom about what byelections tell us you should read this post at Megapundit. We do not know definitively whether the government is systematically punished in byelections. We don't know when turnout in byelections will be higher or lower than average. And we don't know if byelection winners do better or worse than equivalent candidates in the subsequent elections. It is one of many empirical blind spots in Canadian politics. Fred Bastien and I are trying to shed some light on it in a paper in progress, but I still have no idea about the answer to these questions.

All of that said, I am rather confident that new voter ID laws have absolutely nothing to do with the apparently no turnout in Monday's four federal byelections. First, it is completely unlikely that large numbers of voters knew about these new restrictions and thus abstained from voting. Knowledge sufficient to understand the restrictions would also be sufficient to understand what forms of ID could be used in their place. So it's difficult to believe that new restrictions were anything but a post hoc explanation for some people who stayed home. Second, while there are some stories of people being turned away at the polls, there was clearly not enough of this to drive the decline. If, say, 10% of voters in a riding where refused the right to vote you can be sure you'd have news stories with more definitive sentences than "He's (Charlie Angus) also heard of at least one student being turned away in Vancouver Quadra because of the residency identification rules."

Turnout was quite low in Saskatchewan. In fact, in the 41 byelections since 1990, only five had lower turnout. Then again, turnout in the same riding was six points below the national average in 2006, despite the race being extremely close. The likely culprit of this low turnout is rather obvious, I think: first, byelections never have high turnout because of a lack of attention and interest. Second, turnout is declining everywhere, so we should expect to see it declining in byelections as well. Combined, we should expect lower turnout in byelections going forward.

The bottom line: we certainly don't know that low turnout was the result of new voter identification rules. Making hay with Elections Canada over it is probably a little off the mark.

Spector contra the RCMP

Wow. Norman Spector is throwing some serious bombs at the RCMP. This guy does not mess around.

On Fundraising

Elections Canada has just released fourth-quarter financial returns for national political parties. The Conservatives have again outstripped the Liberal Party. The Cons raised just under $5 million from 44,000 contributors. This is an average contribution of something like $110. The Liberals, by contrast, raised just under $2 million from about 14,000 Canadians for an average contribution of $143.

The Conservative fundraising machine is still far superior to the Liberal's; they continue to raise more money in smaller donations. These small donations are the key to success in the post-C-24 world. As donors are quite limited in total annual giving, parties who can raise small amounts of money from regular donors are better off. They can return to these donors when in need rather than having to find altogether new donors. So, the Conservatives appear to maintain the advantage, both in total donations and in the average size of donations.

I should note, however, that it is not all bad for the Liberals. Indeed, comparing this quarter's returns with the previous three quarters suggests that they are getting their act together. In the first quarter of last year the party raised just half a million dollars. They increased that to $1.2 million in the second quarter but it dipped down to just $800,000 in the third quarter. So, their fourth quarter was a big improvement. As importantly, they are increasing the number of donors, from just 4300 in the first quarter to 13,618 this quarter. While they average donation per donor is going up (up 17% from Q1) the number of donations is going up faster (up 311% from Q1). This is the key figure and those slogging away in party headquarters should take some real pride in it.

The Liberal Party still has a long way to go in matching the fundraising capabilities of the Conservatives; an ability which is a result not of wealthy donors but an ability to engage partisans. But they are on the right path. Which is all the more reason for Harper to go to the polls soon.

The case for Dion forcing an election

This is almost certainly a mistake. Advisors to Stephane Dion, presumably the new ones which he has brought in, are counselling him to take on the Tories case by case after the Throne Speech, rather than opposing the speech and triggering an election.

By being outfoxed by Duceppe and Layton, Dion's strategic judgement could be called into question. That is, by allowing them to set their terms of negotiation, he was put against the wall and forced to either accept the government's agenda or call an election. Instead, he appears ready to take a third route, which is to oppose the government on legislation as it comes. This calls his strategic judgement - or that of his advisors - into even greater question. Here is why: this scenario only plays out in two ways. First, Harper gets all the legislation he wants. Second, Dion forces Harper's hand on some obscure piece of legislation and suddenly we're having an election over amendments to the wheat board, or minimum sentences for drug trafficking, or some other small issue. Dion will be seen to have forced the election, and Harper will be able to ask him why he would call Canadians back to the polls over such a small issue.

There is an alternative to this. It is to roll the dice. Oppose the speech from the throne in vigorous terms on the grounds that it is entirely contrary to the Liberal program. Then put it to the people. This is Dion's best course of action. Here's why. First, the opposition within his own party is not going to die down. If they get a clear signal that there will be no election for a year or 18 months they will continue to undermine him. So, the worst case scenario for Dion is that he is eventually forced to step down after a long, Fabian battle. Second, the best he can be in a year from now if he doesn't trigger an election is Leader of the Opposition with 90-some seats. However, if Dion triggers an election, the downside doesn't change. He could still get thrown overboard. But the upside is potentially larger: he could become prime minister if several things fall into place and Harper makes a few mistakes. It seems highly unlikely at this point, but it is not zero-probability. So the downside is the same, but the upside is higher. The only conditions under which waiting make sense are if Dion can force an election under more favourable terms. This seems highly unlikely. Instead, he will have to force it over some small issue, or wait until Harper has pushed through one or two more budgets. The stars are hardly aligned for Mr Dion - and it makes a lot of us honestly sad, because we've had high hopes - but the time to go is now.

UPDATE: It occurs to me that this whole case with Dion after the Throne Speech is a nice illustration of the struggle between leaders and local members. From Dion's perspective, he cares principally about his leadership and advancing his party (with him at the helm). He is as capable of backward induction as anyone else (that is, working backwards from likely outcomes to determine actions), and he certainly must have sensed that now was the time to go. But many media reports suggested the view was not shared by his MPs. This is fair enough: they do not want to lose their jobs either, and probably a third to half of them view themselves as being in marginal ridings. Dion likely doesn't care which MPs win, so long as he has the same number more or less after the election. But those losing MPs do, as their interests are put before those of the party. It's a thought for another post, perhaps.

Funny...

Conservative MP Tom Lukiwski, a member of the Commons standing committee on procedure and affairs, wants Mark Mayrand, the Chief Electoral Officer, to read between the lines of Bill C-31. You see, even though the law actually says nothing about Muslim women reveiling their faces, and even though everything Mayrand has mandated accords strictly with the law, Mayrand is in the wrong for not reading into the law so see what it actually meant. You know, like judges do...

Bush-league RCMP

Wouldn't it be just as wise to recommend that RCMP officers make it a policy to not shoot those they arrest in the back of the head? Or that they not treat a body any differently even if its theresult of a killing by a fellow officer?

I wish William Elliot all the luck in the world. And I wish Paul Koester a lifetime of sleepless nights.

Hand it to Layton, at least he's linguistically consistent when he betrays his internationalism.

Watch the second and third questions in this press conference and then ask yourself whether Jack Layton's internationalism has ever meant a thing.

UPDATE: J Kay says everything I wanted to here.

UPDATE2: If you want to see the heroes who were killed today, go here. You can go here if you want to see people who don't understand for a minute why these heroes served - probably with chests full of pride.

UPDATE3: I am reminded of this hilarious post.

Crosbie and Martin on the Atlantic Accords

There is a lot wrong with John Crosbie and Roland Martin's opinion piece on the Atlantic Accords in today's Globe. I will limit myself to two short objections.

First, they claim that the Atlantic Accord is an "economic development" deal, like the auto industry in Ontario or aerospace in Quebec. This is a faulty analogy. In both of those cases, there is an argument that these industries would not exist if they were not subsidized. In the case of Nova Scotia, the offshore industry already exists. It doesn't require a subsidy to thrive. Indeed, nothing in the Atlantic Accord is about supporting an offshore industry, it is merely about letting NS keep all of the spoils. When Ontario is allowed to deduct auto industry revenues from its fiscal capacity, then the analogy will hold.

Second, they tell the reader not to worry, because if NS is not an equalization receiving province in 2011-12, then the Accord will run out. But honestly, who among us believes that if you don't count resource revenues, that NS won't be receiving equalization in four years? The obviously will. Despite the claims of Rodney and Co. that the federal government wishes to consign them to permanent have not status, it is in fact the opposite that is true. NS wants to be equalization receiving for as long as possible, which it will be as long as resource revenue is kept out of the equation.

Update: Jason Hickman, in his fair and reasonable comments to my post, notes that Alberta was allowed to receive both the benefits of its oil revenues as well as equalization payments in the beginnings of the equalization formula. One often hears this stated, but with little explanation. After doing a modicum of reading, this is the reality (which is not far off Jason's point, except in its implication). When equalization was formally introduced in 1957, a national average was used and fiscal capacity was calculated using personal, corporate and inheritence taxes. This changed five years later when natural resource revenues were added. Alberta was then dropped from equalization.

The implications of this are clear: it is not true that Alberta was given exceptional treatment. Instead, it was given the same treatment as every other province under the equalization formula of the day. When that formula was changed, Alberta no longer received equalization. Whether it did so with or without kicking and screaming is besides the point. The empirical reality is that no exceptions were made. It seems fair enough to ask that those who invoke Alberta's first experience with equalization as instructive would also embrace the second.

Three Non-Random Thoughts

1.) I've just returned from a couple of days in Wisconsin. I gave a little talk on collective action problems and global health at the World Affairs Seminar. Ten years ago, I attended the Seminar as a high school student. It was a great and important experience then, and returning now was equally important. It easily borders on cliché to suggest that today's youth are the hope of tomorrow and then to assert that the future is in good hands. But, after a couple of days around whip-smart high school kids, all of whom have their hearts in the right place, I am closer to believing the cliché is true.

2.) This is an extremely counter-intuitive but convincing paper. It argues that to maintain trade openness in the United States - to defeat the protectionist racket - greater wealth distribution is required. There is an easy knee-jerk reaction to this argument, but I encourage you to read the paper. It's thought-provoking if nothing else.

3.) Dan Leger has more courage than ninety-nine percent of other journalists. He sets aside some serious myths in today's Chronicle-Herald regarding the current debates over equalization. I've avoided blogging on the topic, though I've had some great back and forth with some of my smarter friends in Nova Scotia. For the time being, let me say that Leger captures my sentiments, as does this piece by Coyne.

Party Switching in Malawi

I am neither here nor there on the proper etiquette of floor-crossing. If forced to choose, I'd say MPs are free to sit in whichever caucus they want; their voters can pass judgment at the next election. So, I merely note with interest that Malawi's Supreme Court disagrees, and has empowered the speaker of that parliament to expel MPs who switch parties. This ruling could effectively topple the Malawian government. It kind of puts Garth Turner and Peter Van Loan's ongoing spat into perspective.

Hey Jeff Watson...

Hey Jeff Watson, how does this sound? When you learn to speak French, however badly accented, then you can make fun of Stephane Dion's accent by mimicking it in members' statements, just before Question Period. But, how about until then you just stick to making statements in your normal voice?

On the Greens and the Liberals...

Having just returned from a great day of academic meetings in Chicago, here are my quick two-cents on the May-Dion deal:

i) May has just torpedoed the chances of every other Green candidate save her. Suppose a voter wants to support environmental action. Why in the world would they waste their vote on the Green candidate when they can vote for a Liberal candidate who comes with Ms May's seal of approval.
ii) There is nothing unseemly or untoward about this. At worst, it is awkward. The logic of a plurality system is that the number of parties is always being winnowed. This is why the Progressive Conservatives and the Alliance merged (and, by the way Monte, that happened in a backroom as well). That May has recognized that she cannot win and achieve her objectives on her own and has essentially merged with the Liberals is to her credit. As for Dion, not running a candidate in Central Nova is a small price to pay.
iii) It will be extremely hard to estimate and demonstrate after the election, but I think this is worth 2 points for the Liberals.