Why Trudeau Should Cling to Power

In 1973, Chile's Salvador Allende committed suicide rather than resign as prime minister and vacate the PMO. Unconfirmed reports are that he shot himself in the back with a machine gun.

The polls are now shifting quickly. The likeliest result currently is that the Conservatives win the largest number of seats, buy not a majority. People are reporting this as “a Conservative minority government.” And I see headlines warning that Trudeau may be planning to illegitimately hang on to power anyway.

As if this would be some affront to democracy.

As I understand the Westminster system, Trudeau would be not just within his rights, but right, to stay in power.

I do not say he will; popular opinion has a role here, and may force a new precedent at any time. But by the logic of the Westminster system, the proper thing would indeed be for Trudeau to stay in power and try to form a coalition.

The prime minister is not automatically the leader of the party with the most seats in the house. The prime minister can be, in principle, any member of the House of Commons, or even anyone outside the House, appointed by the Crown as her chief advisor; but this is then immediately subject to their ability to demonstrate the confidence of the House.

Trudeau has been appointed prime minister. He need not resign, now, unless he loses the confidence of the House. Until and unless a vote is held, nobody can assume he has—so long as no other leader can prove that they command a majority. The proper thing, then, is for him to face the house and see if he still has their confidence.

If any one other party holds a majority of the seats in the House after the election, it is simply wasting everyone’s time if the previous PM does not step down. So he will, so as not to look too desperate for power. But if no one party does, the current prime minister has the right to see if he can continue to command a majority: he has first crack at forming a formal or informal coalition. To waive that right to someone else is similarly wasting everyone’s time; if they cannot, it simply comes back to him, and two prime ministers have had to resign in rapid succession instead of one.

Politically, it might be unwise for him to hang on if it is clear his opponent has a better shot at forming a coalition than he does. That too might look like clinging to power. But that’s a bit of a moot point; he will ask around pretty quickly after the election and see what he can come up with, and his chief opponent will do the same, and it will be clear pretty quickly to everyone involved who has a majority coalition and who does not.

After this election, Trudeau looks to have the better shot at a coalition—since the probable third-largest party, the NDP, has already ruled out any coalition with the Tories. So it is quite likely to be his proper course to hang on to power even if the Tories hold more seats. Popular opinion may force him to resign anyway, but that is not the way it is supposed to work.

Either way, I now expect a very unsteady minority government that is likely to fall within the year.

The Lion and the Unicorn

The lion and the unicorn

Were fighting for the crown

The lion beat the unicorn

All around the town.

Some gave them white bread,

And some gave them brown;

Some gave them plum cake

and drummed them out of town

Trudeau and Mulcair have both now said, publicly, adamantly, that they will not prop up the Conservatives in a minority situation. This, pundits prognosticate, means that the Conservatives must get a majority, or they are out.

Not so fast. At this stage, neither alternative party wants the public to think that a vote for them is a vote to keep the Conservatives in. Simple principle: anyone who wants the Conservatives in is voting for the Conservatives.

But what actually happens if the Conservatives win more seats than anyone else?

Harper would have the right to be appointed Prime Minister by the Governor-General. It would be a public scandal if he were not. Then it is up to the other parties to vote him down. Let's say they vote him down. Then, if the election has been quite recent, the Governor-General would properly go to the leader of one of the other parties to see if they can form a government. He might instead violate tradition and call an election, but if he did, the waste of money and apparent lust for power would be a big issue, and the Conservatives would not be the ones blamed.

Now, while it may not be in the interest of either the Liberals or the NDP to see the Conservatives stay in power, it is much less in their interest to see the other alternative party given a chance at government. Since they compete for more or less the same ideological constituency, this would be a crippling blow, perhaps a death blow. It tags their rivals as the apparent alternative.

Therefore, it becomes in their interest not to force it to this point. Given that the Conservatives do not bait them with something they cannot support without looking duplicitous, the party in third place when the election is over is pretty sure to vote with the government for the first six months at least—until it would look as if the Governor General would have to call an election if the government fell.

They could insist, of course, that they are not "propping up" the government at all, but merely supporting this or that specific measure which they feel is in the best interests of Canadians.