Her Excellency the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson,
C.C., C.M.M., C.O.M., C.D.
Governor General
Rideau Hall
1 Sussex Drive
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A1
Excellency,
As leaders of the opposition parties, we are well aware that, given the Liberal minority government, you could be asked by the Prime Minister to dissolve the 38th Parliament at any time should the House of Commons fail to support some part of the government's program.
We respectfully point out that the opposition parties, who together constitute a majority in the House, have been in close consultation. We believe that, should a request for dissolution arise this should give you cause, as constitutional practice has determined, to consult the opposition leaders and consider all of your options before exercising your constitutional authority.
Your attention to this matter is appreciated.
Sincerely,
Hon. Stephen Harper, P.C., M.P.
Leader of the Opposition
Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada
Gilles Duceppe, M.P.
Leader of the Bloc Québécois
Jack Layton, M.P.
Leader of the New Democratic Party
5 comments:
OK... so the leaders put forward that the 2004 letter was about a cooperation, rather than a coalition. Andrew Coyne points out that the details of such a cooperation weren't fleshed out.
Duceppe said all along that the Bloc wouldn't take an active role in a coalition, but simply support it. Don't you think the line where cooperation becomes coalition seems blurry all of a sudden?... isn't this a rose by any other name? If not, it certainly will look that way in the minds of many.
Unfortunately, Andrew Coyne is in no position to tell the Québécois that Duceppe, or anyone for that matter, is lying.
James,
The idea is to demonstrate that Harper is fine with the idea of a coalition so he can't raise it as a minority government bogeyman. Tom Flanagan, a former Harper aide, has basically corroborated Duceppe's words. The fact that politicians are using words such as coalition, cooperation, co-opposition... interchangeably to express a possible collaboration doesn't have much bearing on their credibility.
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