Jane Taber on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.

“We know,” PM Harper told his Conservative summer caucus last week: “there are some in the opposition coalition again threatening an election, but colleagues, that is not what Canadians want.” And just today the sweetheart of Sparks Street Jane Taber is reporting that “Michael Ignatieff is under attack from Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, who are accusing the Liberal leader of once again ‘scheming to impose an unwanted coalition.’”

Meanwhile, this past Monday night, Michael Ignatief himself told a Tory heckler in the Ottawa exurbs that “he has no plans to form a coalition because he already leads a coalition party … ‘We are the coalition, the Liberal Party of Canada is the coalition,’ he said. ‘I’m not running to make coalition with anybody else, I am running to win a Liberal government.’”

Sparks Street mall in Ottawa. Does Jane Taber ever hang out there? Who knows? As they say in the Byward market, maybe, maybe not.

Yet as Ms. Taber’s latest notebook jottings also suggest, “running to win a Liberal government” still looks like a quixotic quest. Moreover, “coalition” is not such a strange term of abuse and unhappiness in Canada’s fellow former self-governing dominion of the now fallen British empire down under. This past Monday Australian Liberal Party leader Tony Abbott was announcing that: “The Coalition is considering taxing all but a fraction of Australians at one simple flat rate, exempting from tax the first $25,000 each Australian earns.”

For any Canadians who may have forgotten, the mainstream of the Australian Liberal Party is quite conservative — and has been an inspiration for Stephen Harper’s new Conservative Party of Canada. And, as explained by no less a source than Wikipedia: “The Coalition in Australian politics refers to a group of centre-right parties that has existed in the form of a coalition agreement since 1922. The Coalition partners are the Liberal Party of Australia (or its predecessors before 1945) and the National Party of Australia (known as the Australian Country Party from 1921-1975 and the National Country Party of Australia from 1975-1982.”

Australian Liberal Party leader Tony Abbott on the campaign trail. Canadians might find the first part of the slogan here vaguely familiar?

There may still be more than a few Canadians as well who have forgotten that there is an Australian federal election this coming Saturday, August 21, 2010.

(August is a strange month for an election in Canada. Apart from the first federal election in 1867, which trundled on for almost six-and-a-half weeks, from Wednesday, August 7 to Friday, September 20, there has been only one Canadian federal election in August — on Monday, August 10, 1953. But, weather-wise, August in Australia is more or less the opposite of what it is in Canada, since the seasons down under are, so to speak, backwards from up here.)

“Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott share a moment before hostilities begin / Picture: Ray Strange.”

This year’s August 21 federal election in Australia also seems to have its fair share of exotic  undertones.  To start with, the governing Australian Labour Party (ALP) just recently switched leaders, when it seemed that Mandarin-speaking Kevin Rudd had become too unpopular to win another election. In the process Australia acquired its first female prime minister in Ms. Julia Gillard, who has been described as “a Fabian socialist and member of Emily’s list, a very feminist, pro-abortion group in the Labor Party.”

Ms. Gillard’s accession to the office of Australian prime minister is in its own right interesting food for thought for those Canadian politicians who argue that, under our shared kind of British-born “Westminister parliamentary democracy,” you have to have an election to change prime ministers. Yet, sensitive to complaints that the people of Australia had not really chosen her, Prime Minister Gillard did call the August 21 election, bolstered by the thought that her party was doing not too badly in the opinion polls.

Julia Gillard and the man she finally replaced as prime minister, Kevin Rudd, confer in Australian House of Representatives in an earlier era.

Then the opinion polls suddenly changed, in favour of Tony Abbott and his Liberal-National Coalition. Now the mood in the Land of Oz suddenly seems to have changed again. (See “What a difference 48 hours has made … Has Tony peaked? Suddenly, Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s stocks appear much better.”)

Australia may be even less influential internationally than Canada. But serious political junkies in all parts of the anglosphere will be paying some attention to the results of the thunder down under on August 21. A victory for Mr. Abbott and his Coalition will encourage the conservative right in the US mid-term elections this coming November — and perhaps the Harper Conservatives at some point this fall in Canada too?  If Ms. Gillard and the ALP manage to hang on, both President Obama’s party and the so-called terrible left-wing “opposition coalition” up here in the true north will be at least somewhat happier.

Julia Gillard in her kitchen at home, where she is “the first to admit she's not a culinary whiz.” Photo: Ken Irwin.

One good place to follow things from now until a week this coming Saturday is the “Decision 2010” page on the web site of The Age from Melbourne. For more irreverent reportage and commentary, check out the free sections of crikey.

(And on the question of whether we the people of Canada will be having our own opportunity to cast judgment on our current federal political leadership soon enough, according to the Toronto Sun Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, this past Monday, “said it depends entirely on Prime Minister Stephen Harper whether Canadians head to the polls this fall … ‘It depends on him. It depends on his government. If he acts with wisdom, we can make Parliament work. But if not, I have my duty as leader of the Opposition,’ Ignatieff told reporters.” And, some will say, appointing John Baird as new Conservative house leader does not seem like an act of very great wisdom in this regard?)

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his wife Laureen enter Calgary Stampede President's Breakfast on Friday, July 9, 2010. Photo: Ted Rhodes, Calgary Herald.

[UPDATED JULY 10, 13]. It is a sign of the strange waters Canadian federal politics are in these days that the Harper minority government’s current omnibus budget bill may be stuck in the still unreformed Senate of Canada.

The Canadian Press reports: “The Tories are threatening a fall election after opposition senators stripped contentious provisions from the Harper government’s massive budget implementation bill … Senator Doug Finley, the Tory national campaign director, said a fall election is a distinct possibility if senators refuse to pass the bill as is.”

For some very good reasons “Liberal and independent senators” have broken up a “bloated budget bill” that parliamentary guru Professor Ned Franks has called “a dog’s breakfast.” It tries to sneak through contentious, essentially non-financial measures on the back of a money bill whose defeat could precipitate a fresh election. The Ignatieff Liberals in the elected branch of parliament were too afraid of an election to challenge what is a sleazy practice at best. But the politics of defeating the bill in the unelected Senate are different.

It is apparently likely enough that the Liberal and independent senators involved will not be able to gather enough votes to push their rebellion to a successful conclusion. But this cannot be because anyone elsewhere is afraid of Senator Finley’s sabre rattling about a fall election over  senatorial obstruction. If Mr. Harper’s party were to follow through on such a threat, it just might do what nothing else seems able to do at the moment — and rescue the Ignatieff Liberals from a seminal low point in their long history.

Senator Finley claims that the fate of Professor Franks’s “dog’s breakfast” budget bill in a Senate to which PM Harper has just appointed yet another aggressively partisan Conservative would be a great election issue. Advice like this from the “Tory national campaign director” only helps explain why the Harper Conservatives have yet to win a majority government.

Green Party leader Elizabeth May — whose party has been doing surprisingly well in recent EKOS polls — enters Calgary Stampede President's Breakfast on Friday, July 9, 2010. Photo: Ted Rhodes, Calgary Herald.

The latest EKOS opinion poll does suggest an alarming decline in support for the Ignatieff Liberals.  But an Ipsos poll released just today has better Liberal results. And both polls  show less support for the Harper Conservatives than in either of their last two minority-government election “victories.” The omnibus budget bill is sleazy. And the argument that the unelected Senate should stop obstructing government legislation falls flat in a red chamber dramatically re-shaped by PM Harper’s orgy of raw patronage appointments over the past year and a half. No wonder “Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s spokesman … played down threats of an election. ‘The Prime Minister is not looking to call an election this fall,’ Dimitri Soudas said. ‘And Canadians don’t want one either.’” Senator Finley better believe it.

UPDATE JULY 13: See: “Closure invoked to end Senate debate on budget bill” ;  “Massive budget bill narrowly passes through senate” ; “Senate passes budget implementation bill” ; and “Travel commitments kept most truant Liberals from key Senate vote.”

Federal NDP Leader Jack Layton (left) and St. John's East MP Jack Harris probably do have a point of principle on the Afghan detainee issue. But is it worth a snap federal election? Photo: Garry Hebbard, The Telegram.

[UPDATED BELOW — JUNE 16, 1:45 PM; JUNE 18, 2:40 PM]. So the crazed prospect that there just might be a snap Canadian federal election, triggered by some ultimate failure to agree on managing Afghan detainee documents, among the four political parties currently represented in Parliament, seems to have at least almost ended. We speculated lightly on the subject this past weekend, and then again Monday morning. (See below or CLICK HERE.) But now  — as of Tuesday, June 15, 2010 — at least three parties, representing an overwhelming parliamentary majority, have agreed on practical details for implementing last month’s agreement in principle.

See “Liberals hail detainee deal, dismiss NDP objections as ‘horsefeathers‘” in the Globe and Mail, and “Deal reached on detainee documents — but NDP pulls out,” in the Vancouver Sun, for just what the ultimate details have proved to be.

From the Globe and Mail report we learn that the agreement among the Conservatives, Liberals, and Bloc Quebecois “allows for a three-person panel of eminent jurists — the opposition has a veto over who sits on this panel —  to first review the documents. As well, each party has two MPs on the [parliamentary] committee” that will oversee the process, and review all documents not excluded by the eminent jurists.

The Vancouver Sun report spells out the New Democrats’ reluctance to go along with all this somewhat more clearly: “The final agreement bars the MPs from looking at confidential cabinet documents or papers protected for reasons of solicitor-client privilege. Those exemptions were cited by the NDP as a main reason they consider the final agreement a charade and backed out at the 11th hour … Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe are poised to sign a memorandum of understanding on the agreement, which is to be tabled in the House of Commons. That’s unlikely to happen until after House of Commons Speaker Peter Milliken responds to an NDP request to reject the deal.” At the same time, “Justice Minister Rob Nicholson questioned whether the NDP had negotiated in good faith. He said the Conservative government must honour the security classification of documents from the current and two previous governments of Liberals Paul Martin and Jean Chretien, in power at the start of Canada’s mission in Afghanistan.”

Our own quick view here is that, in principle, the NDP probably does have a point. (And it will be interesting to see just how “Speaker Peter Milliken responds to an NDP request to reject the deal.”) Yet, as a practical matter, this point is almost certainly not quite strong enough to legitimize, eg, the kind of chaos that a snap Canadian federal election would precipitate at the present juncture. Or, as we noted over this past weekend: “Given recent opinion polls, and the imminent G8 and G20 summits in Toronto and Muskoka, followed very quickly by a visit to Canada from Queen Elizabeth II, it would seem almost certifiably insane for any of the four federal parties in Ottawa today to allow this situation to deteriorate to the point where a snap election is the only way out.”

Finally, the willingness of the Bloc Quebecois to join the Liberals and Conservatives in supporting the agreement that has been reached at last gets Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff out from under the harsh perception that he really does have “no intestinal fortitude at all.” And the same situation allows the NDP to pursue the kind of principled opposition to almost anything it so often likes so much, without having to worry about the broader responsibilities of political leadership. (Even if one of those responsibilities is not really to “honour the security classification of documents from the current and two previous governments.”) The crucial point here, it seems to us, is that the fate of Afghan detainees Canadian forces have in the past handed over to Afghan forces is just not, by itself, a big enough issue to justify turning Canadian federal politics inside out, with a snap election in the early summer of 2010.

UPDATE JUNE 16, 1:45 PM: At 12:48 PM today the Globe and Mail website posted an item that underlines just how much of a point of principle the NDP does have. See “Detainee documents deal is a mess, expert says.”

The crucial political question, it still seems to us, is whether the majority of we the Canadian people want a federal election at this more or less exact time, over the Afghan detainee documents issue. Our sense remains that the answer to this question is no. (Maybe this fall, on a broader array of issues, but not right now, etc.)

And we still wonder whether the NDP would press the point as it is doing, if the main burden of deciding whether there would actually be an election were on its shoulders.

At the same time, we’d ultimately agree, the NDP is no doubt doing a good thing in some sense, by standing up for the principle, and so forth. For a report in our other official language see “Détenus afghans: le gouvernement et l’opposition s’entendent sans le NPD.”

UPDATE JUNE 18, 2:40 PM: Just a few last notes here, as the MP s fan out across the various parts of the country to which they belong, for their long summer vacation.

First, Speaker Peter Milliken has now given his blessing to the deal signed by the Conservatives, Liberals, and Bloc Quebecois — despite the protests of the NDP. You could say well what do you expect: he is a Liberal.  Even so, his decision does blunt the “NDP request to reject the deal.”

Second, CLICK HERE for the full text of the final agreement. As Liberal negotiator Ralph Goodale has stressed on TV, it is the expert “Panel of Arbiters” that “can determine, at the request of the government” (paragraph 7) — and not the government all by itself — whether not to disclose information “due to the solicitor-client privilege” or “information constituting Cabinet confidences.” Mr. Goodale’s distinction here, however, does seem something of a mere formality. As the headline to the Globe and Mail report on the final text puts it, “Pact ensures sensitive detainee files will remain sealed.”

So in the end the NDP still has its point of principle — even if its ultimate practical importance is not so great as to stop everyone’s approaching summer holidays for a snap election on the subtleties of crime and punishment in the faraway turbulent land of Afghanistan, which of course does not have a “free and democratic society” quite like the one we have in Canada today.

Shakira performs at kick-off concert for 2010 World Cup at Orlando Stadium in Soweto, South Africa. Photograph by: Stuart Franklin, Getty Images. Meanwhile, what if we suddenly did stumble into a surprise federal election in Canada, over the Afghanistan documents that almost everyone has already forgotten?

SUNDAY, JUNE 13, 2010. 1:15 AM. [UPDATED JUNE 14 BELOW.]  A few of us came into the office on a Saturday night, to catch up on some World Cup TV, far from the madding crowds at home. One of us was also catching up  on the latest Afghan detainee documents developments in the alleged nations’ capital, on the banks of the Ottawa River. (Where a dead man’s body was recently discovered “near 24 Sussex Dr.,” official residence of the Prime Minister of Canada: though other reports just say “near the Ottawa Rowing Club,” no doubt for good reasons.)

So it turns out that the four political parties in the Canadian House of Commons have still not come up with the practical details for implementing last month’s agreement in principle on the release of  Afghan detainee documents, prompted by House Speaker Peter Milliken’s wise and measured ruling on the issue a few weeks before. According to The Canadian Press, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, speaking at an event in Halifax, has just said “We’re kind of running the clock here and there’s a question as to whether the government’s ragging the puck.” The CP report goes on: “The NDP and the Bloc have threatened to hold up millions in federal cash needed to pay for the G8 and G20 summits if the Conservatives don’t release the documents.”

As the CBC website reminded us in the middle of this past week, the four parties “have failed to come to a final agreement, despite a May 31 deadline to do so, raising concerns that the government could face a contempt of Parliament motion. That could trigger a court battle or a snap election.”  Given recent opinion polls, and the imminent G8 and G20 summits in Toronto and Muskoka, followed very quickly by a visit to Canada from Queen Elizabeth II, it would seem almost certifiably insane for any of the four federal parties in Ottawa today to allow this situation to deteriorate to the point where a snap election is the only way out. On the other hand, stranger things have happened in Canadian politics …

“A man's body was pulled from the Ottawa River near the Ottawa Rowing Club, Friday, June 11, 2010.”

And then, fortified by various World Cup beverages, our Saturday night debating club noted how no one was expecting today’s game between England and the USA to end in a 1-1 tie.  But then English goalie “Rob Green extends blooper reel, lets US back in for draw.” And this can get you thinking about just what might happen in a snap Canadian federal election — in a Canadian world where such contests are so often not won by oppositions but lost by governments (and especially arrogant, dithering minority governments?).

It is true as well that in the weekly EKOS poll, the gap between Conservatives and Liberals has lately been growing smaller, albeit very gradually. And then, just think … What if Stephen Harper’s party wound up having someone play the role of Rob Green, strictly by accident (as such things usually are)? And what if in the snap Afghan documents election the Conservatives and Liberals wound up tied, or virtually tied, in numbers of seats in Parliament? And what if the combined Liberal-NDP number of seats after this same snap election actually did wind up giving the two “progressive” parties together (and/or with the Greens too?) a parliamentary majority. Wouldn’t that set the stage for the kind of altogether legitimate coalition government — constitutionally and politically — that really does seem to be keeping Mr. Harper and his new Conservative Party of Canada up late at night these restless northern days (and nights)?

English goalie somehow lets US shot that shouldn’t have scored in the net on June 12. No one was expecting this to happen either. The game ended in a 1-1 tie.

Of course none of this is actually likely to happen — of course, of course. As things stand right now, the most likely result of any fresh Canadian federal election, snap or otherwise, would be yet another Stephen Harper minority government (perhaps with not as many seats as it has now, but still facing a Liberal-NDP opposition that would need Bloc Quebecois votes to command a parliamentary majority). And yet … as the English historian J.H. Plumb reminded us back in the late 1960s: “Traditions are quickly bred and quickly destroyed and they snap suddenly.”  And what better place for a quickly bred tradition to snap in, than a sudden snap election?

UPDATE JUNE 14: Representatives of the four parties are meeting today, in an effort to hammer out a final deal. But the Conservatives are apparently still trying to insist on some unilateral executive branch right to exclude documents, contrary to the spirit of the Speaker’s ruling.  See “Parties meet in final bid to reach agreement on detainee records … Government seeks to withhold some documents on grounds of national security.” It almost seems as if Mr. Harper may want a snap election? Our guess is that if he does he could be unpleasantly surprised. Or maybe not, of course. (And then again it may just be that Mr. Harper really does think Mr. Ignatieff has no intestinal fortitude at all?)

Photoshopped Belinda Stronach, compliments of jensorlie. Ms. Stronach surprised almost everyone when she jumped from the Cons to the Libs, a political lifetime ago now it seems. Who or what will be next, and when?

I don’t usually admire the Conservative guru Tim Powers. But his January 2 note of caution on recent Canadian federal election speculation — from no less than John Ibbitson, Don Newman, and Norman Spector — seems at least somewhat wise. (Even if he left Jim Travers off his list, probably because Travers published on January 2 as well!)

As Powers puts it: “The one predictable thing about the minority governments of the last six years has been unpredictability. From Belinda Stronach’s defection to the Liberals to Jack Layton’s recent support of the current government’s last few confidence motions nothing happened as was forecast.”

That having been said, alternate Conservative guru Norman Spector’s 2010 election talk is impressive for its precision. Spector specifies that early this coming March Mr. Harper will (or “could” at any rate) go “to Rideau Hall to request a vote on Tuesday April 12th.” (Well, Tuesday the 12th here is a typo. But the Globe and Mail editors get it right in their headline: “Mark April 13th in your new 2010 calendar as election day.”)

On this scenario what lies ahead is not an election triggered by the opposition majority, in a parliamentary defeat of the Harper minority government, etc, etc. It is a vote called by the Harper minority government itself, in search of a parliamentary majority. Odd how no one any longer even seems to consider that: “On November 6, 2006, the Parliament of Canada [on the urging of the Harper government] passed” legislation which “requires that each general election is to take place on the third Monday in October, in the fourth calendar year after the previous poll.”

Belinda Stronach in real life, with friend. Stephen Harper should have known: no real Conservative would hang out with this guy! Is the minority prime minister making a similar mistake now, and with who?

Meanwhile, Susan Delacourt has just pointed out that, whatever happens with elections, the Harper minority government will very soon give the Canadian people an unreformed Senate in which appointed Conservatives outnumber appointed Liberals.  (Who once said the Senate of Canada is “a relic of the 19th century” again?)

Le Devoir has made a vaguely related point on the Harper government’s latest throne speech, this coming March 3, 2010 (after the current prorogation of both houses of parliament ends), in the country’s other official language: “Le gouvernement Harper présentera alors un nouveau discours du Trône et déposera son budget dès le lendemain, soit le 4 mars. Il s’agira du 5e discours du Trône en seulement quatre ans pour le gouvernement conservateur.” The once alleged reformer Mr. Harper, it now seems, is determined to use all the old Ottawa tricks, as much as he can!