- Dr. Roger Gibbins, President and CEO, Canada West Foundation
Governor General Michaelle Jean faces a truly awful choice next Monday: she can call an election that no one wants, or she can bring in an unstable minority government kept in power at the whim of a party dedicated to the destruction of Canada. Fortunately, there is a way out of this box. She can just say no.
Many commentators argue that the Governor General in fact has no choice at all, that if the Conservative government of Stephen Harper loses the confidence of the House of Commons, he must resign and the Governor General must call upon the leader of the official opposition to see if he is prepared to form a government. If Mr. Dion has been able to cobble together a coalition with the NDP, and if the two can meet the ransom demands of the Bloc, then Dion would become prime minister.
However, the constitutional precedents are very few and far between, and generally lack any contemporary relevance. The constitutional wisdom tossed about is often thinly veiled partisanship where the commentator begins with the desired partisan outcome and then twists constitutional theory to fit that outcome.
The argument for constitutional determinism, that the Governor General is simply a robot who must act in a particular way, ignores that the beauty of her position, and also the difficulty of her choice, stems from the fact that she has discretion. We don’t have a rigid constitutional formula because we know that in some circumstances, intelligence and judgment must be brought into play. There is no question that this is one of those times.
So, what is the nature of her decision? Let’s begin by stressing that her duty is not to decide what is best for the economy, to decide whether we need more or less stimulus for the economy. This is a policy decision that rests with the political process and not with the Crown’s representative even in circumstances such as these when party leaders across the board have abandoned any interest in what’s good for the economy.
Certainly Mr. Harper did not think twice or even once about the economy when he made his appallingly dumb decision to bundle the elimination of public financing for parties into his financial update. For their part, the opposition parties are not to be taken seriously when they argue that what they are proposing either plunging the country into an election or forming a government that effectively gives the keys to the national treasury to a party committed to the destruction of Canada, would be in the best interests of the economy.
No, the Governor General’s duty is to ensure as best she can that Canada has a government that is capable of governing in the national interest in the circumstances of the time. In the event that Harper’s government’s loses a confidence vote in the House, her initial choice boils down to accepting the prime minister’s inevitable request for a new election, or calling upon Mr. Dion to form a government. Unfortunately, neither option is compatible with good government in trying economic times.
Canada does not need another election to be called less than two months after the last campaign ended. To put the federal government into neutral for another two months, and then start again, could be devastating for the economy.
However, the option of a Liberal-NDP coalition is no better. The problem is not the nature of the two parties themselves, but that such a coalition could only govern with the consent of the Bloc. Every action of the coalition would therefore be measured against two touchstones: does it transfer enough money to Quebec, enough being defined by the Bloc; and does it lead in the long term to the destruction of Canada? To place every act of Parliament in the hands of a party dedicated to the end of Canada would be folly.
Fortunately, there is a third way, and one that has a good deal of constitutional precedent. The Governor General could simply refuse to accept Mr. Harper’s resignation, just as prime ministers and premiers in the past have often refused to accept letters of resignation from cabinet ministers. The Governor General could say that accepting Harper’s resignation is not in the best interests of the country because it would set in motion a choice between two unacceptable alternatives.
In effect, the Governor General would send Mr. Harper back to negotiate an economic package that could secure majority support in the House. She would implicitly instruct the opposition parties to make this Parliament work. She would exercise the discretionary power that the Constitution has wisely placed in her hands. She would just say no.
