Speaking of coalitions

CanWest reports that Con Whip Jay Hill is putting on a public face of cooperation with the opposition parties. But it's worth noting that the Cons are sticking to an interesting message in trying to cast blame for their own attempts to shut down Commons committees:

Conservative government Whip Jay Hill has called his counterparts from all three federal parties to a special meeting this morning to attempt to make peace and strike some sort of compromise that will allow the work of Parliament to continue.

"We can just sit down and hopefully calmly discuss some of these challenges that we're facing," Mr. Hill said in an interview. "I think the end goal is to lower the temperature a little bit and to work together."...

"What we saw in the last few weeks was really a further breakdown of communication between the Opposition parties and the government and a power struggle, not only in the chamber, but in the committees," Mr. Hill said. "The Opposition has increasingly been behaving more like a coalition government in Parliament than a constructive Opposition, in my opinion."

The "coalition government" line is one that Hill himself has been using for quite some time. But it's worth asking why the Cons seem to consider the phrase a slur rather than something which Canadians would actually like to see.

Presumably the bulk of the Cons' strategy in using the phrase lies in the idea that the failings of Parliament in general are likely to be more strongly associated with the government than the opposition - a point made in Abbas Rana's article in today's Hill Times. But the Cons' odds of successfully deflecting blame are long at best given their constant attempts to make use of the "new government" brand. And any additional benefits such as the possibility of creating a siege mentality in the Cons' base appear minimal.

Meanwhile, the phrase has several effects that the Cons would presumably be smart enough to want to avoid. For one, it completely undercuts the Cons' attempt to present themselves as a "natural governing party", suggesting that a group of parties with far more seats and votes than the Cons is willing and able to act in concert. In addition, the phrase helps to link Stephane Dion into the forefront of a supposed governing structure - which can only undermine the Cons' "not a leader" claim later on.

Finally, and most importantly, the Cons' repetition of the phrase can only bring even further into the mainstream the prospect that a real coalition government could be elected - and get people talking about the likely effects of inter-party cooperation. Which figures both to offer yet another benefit to the "yes" side in Ontario's MMP referendum this fall, and to encourage the opposition parties to cooperate all the more in an effort to show that Canadians aren't stuck with government by Harper fiat.

Ultimately, if a diverse set of opposition parties is finding common ground in so many situations, that can only reflect the Cons' own failures as a government. And if the Cons want to raise questions as to whether Canadians would prefer to see absolute power in Harper's hands rather than a system which encourages cooperation and punishes blind partisanship, they don't figure to enjoy finding out the answers.