NDP open to coalition with Liberals in quest to topple Tories
OTTAWA— Federal New Democrats say they’re open to forming a coalition government with their Liberal rivals to end Stephen Harper’s long hold on power but Justin Trudeau is pouring cold water on the preelection jockeying.
Should the Oct. 19 election produce a minority Conservative government, some opposition MPs are musing about joining together as a strategy to oust the Tories altogether. NDP MP Nathan Cullen (Skeena— Bulkley Valley) said that while winning a majority remains his party’s goal, ultimately the No. 1 priority is toppling the Tories.
“The Liberal voters that I know are as fed up with Stephen Harper as anybody,” Cullen told The Canadian Press in an interview on Wednesday.
“But Justin Trudeau will do himself a great deal of damage with progressive voters if he wants to contemplate more years of this Harper government.”
At Toronto city hall Thursday, NDP MP Andrew Cash (Davenport), speaking to reporters after a meeting with Toronto Mayor John Tory, did not shy from talk of an NDP-Liberal coalition.
“We have said and (NDP Leader) Tom Mulcair has been publicly clear on this issue — our job is to replace Stephen Harper. The people of Canada will decide what that configuration looks like, and we would be very open to a coalition if that’s the way in which the seats in the House of Commons shook down after Oct. 19.”
Mulcair himself said Thursday that the NDP priority is to “defeat and replace” Harper’s government.
“We’ve always worked with others in the past but every time I’ve raised this prospect with Justin Trudeau, he’s slammed the door on it,” Mulcair said during a swing through southwestern Ontario.
And indeed, that is what Trudeau did again Thursday.
“There are a number of issues on which the Liberal Party of Canada and the NDP disagree on quite a fundamental level,” Trudeau said during a stop in Winnipeg.
“Although of course we are open to working with all parties in the House to pass good legislation and to ensure Canadians’ interests are served, there will be no formal coalition with the NDP,” the Liberal leader told reporters.
Still, Trudeau’s willingness to work with other parties appears to leave the door open to the possibility of a loose NDP-Liberal alliance that could topple a minority Conservative party.
The prospect of a coalition government was last floated in the fall of 2008 when the New Democrats and Liberals banded together with the backing of the separatist Bloc Québécois in an attempt to vote out the minority Conservatives, just months after the federal election.
But former governor general Michaëlle Jean granted Harper’s request to prorogue Parliament, buying him time and putting off the vote that might have ended his government.
When Parliament returned months later, Michael Ignatieff, the newly crowned Liberal leader, rejected the coalition, saying it was not in the national interest.