McLeod Group Blog, Sept. 8, 2015
[First of three blogs on the subject of coalition governments]
A coalition government is an alliance between two or more political parties, either before or after an election. Normally coalitions involve a formal agreement on the fundamental directions of public policy to be adopted during the mandate of the coalition, and on how Cabinet seats are to be allocated among the parties involved.
Although commonplace in other countries, when faced with the prospect of a Liberal/NDP coalition supported by the Bloc Québécois in 2008, Stephen Harper panicked, saying that Conservatives would ‘use all legal means to resist this undemocratic seizure of power… such an illegitimate government would be a catastrophe, for our democracy, our unity and our economy.’ He sped across the street to Rideau Hall asking for and getting authority to prorogue Parliament in order to avoid this ‘disastrous’ outcome.
He got away with it in part because of Canadians’ unfamiliarity with, and resulting suspicion of coalition governments. We tend to associate them with times of crisis and upheaval. Or we may think of Italy or Israel, where coalition governments are linked to high government instability and turmoil.
The reality is that most of the world’s parliamentary democracies know and understand coalitions, a form of government that can be highly productive, effective and democratic.
Coalitions in Canada are rare, but not unheard of. The country is in a sense the product of a coalition government. The Great Coalition of 1864 brought together George Brown’s Reformers and John A. Macdonald’s Conservatives in a single government that paved the way for the Charlottetown Conference and Confederation. Macdonald’s first government was formally a coalition.
Since Confederation, the only federal coalition was Robert Borden’s Union government of 1917. Both Conservatives and Liberals held cabinet seats during this government, which was formed to confront the dangers of wartime and promote national unity in the face of controversies over conscription.
The best known modern-day coalition-type arrangement in Canada was formed in Ontario after the 1985 election, in which the Liberal party headed by David Peterson formed a government with support from the smaller NDP, led by Bob Rae. The two parties signed a written agreement on a legislative program, and the NDP agreed not to bring down the government in a non-confidence vote for two years. The Saskatchewan NDP government of Roy Romanow ruled in coalition with the Liberals after the 1999 election.
Coalitions around the world come in many shapes and sizes, depending on the country’s history, institutions and political culture. Some are agreed between allied parties before an election, but most are formed afterwards; such outcomes are viewed as perfectly legitimate.
In a ‘junior partner’ coalition, a large party joins forces with a smaller one, as in David Cameron’s coalition with the Liberal Democrats between 2010 and 2015. Since 1989, Ireland has had coalition governments headed by one of its two major parties. Stephen Harper’s ideological ally, Tony Abbott, is the head of the Liberal Party of Australia, which is part of a long-lasting coalition with the National Party, the Country Liberal Party of the Northern Territory, and the Liberal National Party of Queensland.
New Zealand is another Westminster example. For years the country had a classic two-party system. With the adoption in 1996 of mixed member proportional voting (a form of proportional representation), however, it has morphed into a multi-party system, and coalition governments have become common.
Multi-party coalitions are more common in proportional representation systems. The Dutch have had coalition governments since 1918, a stable and long-lasting feature of their democracy. Since the 1970s, there have been six or seven significant political parties in Denmark. As a result, no single party has formed a government alone since 1982.
‘Grand coalitions’ – formed when a country’s two biggest parties come together to form a government – may be most common in moments of national crisis, like Robert Borden’s Union government of 1917, but they occur in other situations as well. Angela Merkel headed a grand coalition between the country’s two biggest parties, the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, between 2005 and 2009 because the election results were very close and neither larger party was able to achieve a majority in alliance with smaller parties.
Undemocratic? Illegitimate? Catastrophic? Maybe not so much.