SPRING 2024 // Canadian Government Executive / 17 CGE LEADERSHIP SERIES LORI TURNBULL: I don’t either. But I think you’re absolutely right about the questions that all of the leaders will get questions about whether leader of the party with the most seats should be able to form the government. MICHAEL WERNICK: But they may not be able to. I’d go back to the BC election, where Christy Clark had the most seats, but couldn’t form a government. The core thing we should ask all the party leaders, whether they agree with it or not, is about the winner being person who can command the confidence of the next House of Commons. LORI TURNBULL: That’s the rule, and I think that we need to say that as often as possible. In 2015 when it looked like the three parties were very, very close, it wasn’t clear any of them would be leader. Of course, that changed when Trudeau won a huge majority, but for a while it looked like it could also be Mulcair or Harper. Peter Mansbridge in his interviews with all the leaders on The National asked them, “Do you believe that the person who is the leader of the party with the most seats should form a government?” That’s not the rule, but they all went along with it. This is potentially very dangerous. We don’t have the same conversation the U.S. is having on the rules of the game and the agreement around that. But we have a different system, and it strikes me that there could be a lot of confusion publicly if the person who wins the party is the leader of the party with the most seats, doesn’t govern because they can’t. MICHAEL WERNICK: It’s an issue that needs to be discussed during the election campaign, so that we know where people stand. I have noticed that a lot of the polling and seat projection sites in Canada have adopted the models in other countries, posting potential coalition combinations - red plus orange or blue plus purple and so on. I think Canadians will learn a fair bit about the arithmetic of potential combinations. But I think it’s the job of the media and others to draw out our political parties on this. LORI TURNBULL: And I think that there are constitutional reasons why we would want to normalize various machinations that could lead to someone having the confidence of the House. In 2008, going back to that example, there was nothing wrong constitutionally with two parties saying we’re going to defeat the government on a money bill and then offer a government. And if they can hold the confidence of the House, then that’s it. That’s the rule. And it was amazing how little acceptance there was of that and how successful Stephen Harper and the Conservatives were at saying nobody voted for this, and that if you want a coalition to take over, you must go to election to do that, which is wrong. But people believed it. So, I wonder what might happen in the same case this time. I’ve always wondered whether the purpose of the Liberal-NDP confidence and supply agreement, which is not a coalition, is to normalize a shared governance agreement in the event that Poilievre comes first but doesn’t get a majority. MICHAEL WERNICK: You have to ask the architects of that. I think 2008 was a particular exercise because it brought in the right of the Prime Minister to seek dissolution and the role of the Governor General. It all seemed a bit arcane. To Canadians, this is straightforward. We’ll have an election and there’ll be an outcome election night and then people can look at the arithmetic. So, I do think it’s a little bit more straightforward in terms of managing the outcomes of the of the next federal election or some of the provincial elections that are coming up. The supply agreement is similar to the Martin-Layton deal. It’s similar to the BC deal between Premier Horgan and the Green Party. We’ve seen this kind of thing before. It is a long time since we’ve crossed the Rubicon into coalition governments, which means ministers from more than one party. It’s a perfectly workable way of working. The UK has done it so we should be able to make it work, but it’s only going to be necessary in certain political combinations. LORI TURNBULL: All remains to be seen. Clearly, we need more than one podcast to talk about all this stuff. And so we’re going to have to hope that you are generous with your time to come back and do this again. Thank you so much Michael for sharing your views about this with us. This has been fascinating to listen to you, and let’s do it again. MICHAEL WERNICK: Thanks for inviting me. I think we can all start our countdown clocks it. It may come sooner, but we know the outer bound, October 20th next year. “The supply agreement is similar to the Martin-Layton deal. It’s similar to the BC deal between Premier Horgan and the Green Party. We’ve seen this kind of thing before. It is a long time since we’ve crossed the Rubicon into coalition governments, which means ministers from more than one party. It’s a perfectly workable way of working. ” — Michael Wernick
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