On joint efforts

It's probably worth making sure we start getting our "coalition" terminology right as Canada's political parties consider their options for the next election and beyond - and on that front, one can't paint the Libs as having won any of the benefits normally bestowed on the junior partner in an actual coalition government. But otherwise, Paul Wells is once again all too accurate in describing the partnership between the Cons and Libs:

(E)ven though Ottawa is rife with rumours this summer, yet again, that Harper will contrive a reason to trigger an election in the autumn, there’s no reason to doubt something else that he told Reuters, which is that he doesn’t want one. If an election goes really well for him, he’ll be Prime Minister when it’s over. But he’s Prime Minister already. And he’s really the Prime Minister. Another evergreen Ottawa myth asserts that Harper is somehow unfulfilled without a parliamentary majority. But he has had a majority for four years, thanks to a succession of not-ready-for-prime-time Liberals...

And in concert with the Liberals, Stephen Harper is changing this country. He was able to gut environmental oversight of energy projects in the middle of a historic energy-sector environmental disaster. He is stuffing the nation’s prisons like Christmas geese. He spent $1 billion turning the country’s biggest city into a demonstration of the necessity (if not, ahem, the effectiveness) of tough policing against thugs, rabble, bicyclists and other miscreants. Inside the riot zone, with the world watching, he stared down Barack Obama in a debate over continued fiscal stimulus vs. relative budgetary restraint. He gets to name Supreme Court justices. He gets to name a new governor general. He’s in charge of nominations to every board and agency.

So when Liberals debate the wisdom of coalition government, it would be well for them to remember they are already in one. And when they debate the worth of Michael Ignatieff to Liberals, they will perhaps be heartened to learn that Conservatives are tremendously fond of him.