Countermessaging

As much as this post was intended to be tongue-in-cheek, I have to wonder now if it might hint at part of the message that the coalition parties need to be sending. So far, the public battleground seems to be about what the Libs and Governor General should do - while there's been little concerted effort to push on the Cons to stop putting roadblocks in the way of democracy since Layton's remarks when the coalition was first announced. (Note that this is distinct from criticisms of what the Cons have done already - the issue is what they should be doing now.)

With that in mind, a few added talking points that I'd like to see emphasized over the next couple of days:
- By electing another minority Parliament, voters told their MPs that they expected to see cooperation among Canada's political parties.
- Four of the parties (including the Greens) have come together to meet that demand; only the Conservatives are standing in the way of a cooperative government.
- The coalition is ready to get to work in dealing with the economic downturn. As part of that work, the coalition fully expects to listen to the Conservatives and their supporters.
- If the Conservatives want to have a stable and effective government in the near future, the best thing they can do now is to work with the coalition. The more they do so, the more the coalition will be able to take their views into account.
- Conservative cooperation doesn't have to start at the top. Individual Conservative MPs and supporters can also help stabilize Canada's government merely by pointing out in caucus and in public that the coalition holds the support of a majority of MPs backed by a majority of the popular vote.

And for the coalition's supporters, it probably can't hurt either to contact backbench Con MPs and send the same message to them as well. We know that at least some of them recognize that Harper's stay in office can't be salvaged; the more they hear that the public expects them to act accordingly, the better the chances of minimizing the damage done by Harper's last desperate attempt to cling to power.