The Senate, the coalition and the public interest

You can usually tell when our Prime Minister is up to no good. It's when he makes announcements that he believes we won't like when he thinks most of us aren't watching. It's the hand in the cookie jar approach to governing and regular readers of this column might well expect that I would call him on his latest episode, the seasonal gift of 18 Senate appointments.

But this time I was surprisingly ambivalent to hear that Conservative hands were back in the cookie jar. While not my idea of how best to stimulate the economy, at least now I can watch CTV prime time national news coverage again without my blood pressure rising.

More than this, the appointment of Conservative loyalists to the Senate weakens Harper's last democratic plank; an elected Senate. His broken promise this time makes it more likely that eventually we will move to dismantle the second chamber, use the room for concerts, for a food bank or a daycare, and save us all a whole lot of money.

The Senate simply does not justify its cost. Regional interests are now represented effectively in the House, in Cabinet, and by the Premiers; no amount of tinkering with it seems promising; and any real change would require that we reopen the great constitutional debate in Canada.

That the Senate was to serve as the chamber of sober and sombre second thought for the well-to-do is an embarrassment we can easily do without.

The coalition squeeze play

While there has been scant evidence to indicate that public opposition to the idea of the coalition has moderated, it doesn't mean it is dead.

Indeed, Michael Ignatieff seems ever so slightly to be warming to it. Ordinarily what one would anticipate is the Liberals will criticize the January Budget for being too little, too late and await the public's response to this critique, bringing down the government only if the polls appear promising for them.

However, Ignatieff may choose to pull the plug on the government even if polling data is not perfectly encouraging, assume the reins of government and face the electorate 18-24 months later when all, he would hope, might be forgotten or forgiven. The argument would be that while no Canadians voted directly for a coalition, 62 per cent of them voted against a Conservative government.

Ironically, if the economy appears to be showing quiet, nascent signs of improvement by late January, Iggy and the coalition might wish to take power before the Prime Minister has a chance to take credit for the recovery. If, on the other hand, the PM produces a budget that Iggy can live with, and then the economy improves, Iggy and the coalition will take credit for the recovery.

Mr. Harper, of course, may have been right; that we didn't need as much in the way of economic stimulation as the rest of the world and that dragging our feet was good policy. However, the coalition's squeeze play may well prevent him from taking credit for this judgment if a good judgment it might have proved to be. And it may cause him to spend public monies that he believes is unjustified.

Iggy's concept of the public interest

Many of us have been unsure what it is that Ignatieff stands for, partly because we have been so put off by his support for the Bush Iraq policy and his keenness in promoting on our war effort in Afghanistan. But recently he has begun to reveal more of what he takes to be the principles for public policy.

To political philosophers it is interesting to see Iggy move away from a reliance on a conception of natural rights as the grounding of political conduct, moving, it appears, to the idea of the public interest. (It was the majesty of rights talk that pulled him so offside on the Iraq file.) That he appears now wishing to speak in the language of the public interest is encouraging.

Especially interesting in this light is his suggestion that the January Budget should do most to protect the vulnerable. What he means by this and how far he is willing to go to defend it, however, is yet to be determined.