"It is hard to quarrel with Michael Ignatieff’s analysis. Indeed, it’s unassailable. Had the opposition parties succeeded last fall in their plan to oust the Conservatives and form a coalition government in their place, the Liberal leader argues, it would have caused irreparable harm to Canadian unity. The coalition, he told a gathering in Montreal last weekend, would have “profoundly and durably divided the country.”
“There was also a question concerning the legitimacy of the coalition that troubled me,” he confided. While perfectly legal, it would nonetheless have struck many Canadians, coming so soon after an election in which the Liberals had suffered their worst defeat since Confederation, as if they and their coalition partners had “in some sense or another stolen power.”Moreover, it would have been very difficult to assure the country of the certainty and stability it needed in a time of crisis “with three partners in a formal coalition,” he said, likening it, CP reports, to a rickety three-legged stool. “That was my first doubt. I couldn’t guarantee the long-term stability of the coalition.” " by Andrew Coyne on Thursday, May 21, 2009 MacLean
No comments:
Post a Comment