Michael Ignatieff will become Prime Minister in a Liberalled coalition government if the opposition parties succeed in bringing down the Conservatives in a no-confidence vote in the House of Commons next week and if the Governor-General deems it to be a viable alternative, sources said late last night.Mr. Ignatieff met with lame duck Liberal leader, Stephane Dion, and leadership candidates Bob Rae and Dominic LeBlanc in Toronto last night over dinner and structured a deal that would see Mr. Dion and Mr. Rae step aside, with the latter named to a senior post, likely Foreign Affairs Minister. When asked if a deal had been finalized, one of the men said not yet.Earlier, Mr. Dion is understood to have struck a deal with NDP leader Jack Layton in which the New Democrats would get around a quarter of the seats around the Cabinet table, if the coalition bid to unseat the Conservatives is successful. The deal would have a guaranteed two and a half year lifespan.
It is understood that Mr. Ignatieff was reluctant to sign on unless he was named interim leader because it would leave Mr. Dion, who was recently rejected by the Canadian electorate, as leader.Prior to the deal being struck, sources close to Mr. Ignatieff said he was unlikely to support the deal because of concerns that a coalition government led by Mr. Dion would be a "poisoned chalice" for the next leader.Mr. Ignatieff has the support of an overwhelming number of Liberal MPs -- more than 50 of the 77 member caucus -- so his reluctance would likely have doomed the bid by the opposition parties. Those concerns were eased by the prospect of Mr. Ignatieff becoming Prime Minister.
It is understood that the plan will be presented to the Liberal caucus today at 1 p. m.
Rumours emerging from the meeting of the Liberal leadership capped a day of high political drama.Yesterday, the government continued its attempts to remove the irritants that provoked the crisis. The proposed ban on strikes for the public service was ditched, following the remarkable u-turn on the public funding of political parties issue on Saturday.Jim Flaherty, the Finance Minister, said yesterday that he will bring down a budget on Jan. 27, although he stopped short of promising the kind of stimulus package the opposition parties have been demanding.
Scott Brison, the Liberal finance critic, said that the government's moves mean nothing. "We can't trust anything th
is government says any more. We have no faith in this Prime Minister," he said. The Conservatives hope that the focus of media coverage will now shift to the potential coalition partners and what the some Tories have been calling their " coup d'etat." The allegation that NDP leader Jack Layton and the Blco Quebecois' Gilles Duceppe held conversations about a coalition long before the current crisis offered the Conservatives the chance to hit back after days of being pounded over the political funding issue. They charged that the confidence vote is not about the handling of the economy or the government's fall update, "[It] is merely a trigger to execute a long-standing secret deal between the NDP and the Quebec separatists."
The Conservatives have alleged that the moves by the opposition parties to offer themselves up to the Governor-General as a viable alternative, should the government fall, are undemocratic. However, the Liberals retaliated by saying that Mr. Harper, Mr. Layton and Mr. Duceppe presented precisely the same proposal to former Governor-General, Adrienne Clarkson, in 2005. The only certainty amidst the drama is that Stephen Harper has been wounded by his miscalculation. His reputation for strategic brilliance is in tatters and many Conservatives have started speculating about leadership challenges.
An unofficial Web site called Conservatives for Jim Prentice sprung up yesterday, pointing out that Mr. Prentice has invited his opposition critics to join him at the U. N.'s global climate-change talks taking place next week in Poland."If the government had acted more like this, while still advancing the Conservative agenda in a less aggressive way, we might not be staring into the abyss," wrote the anonymous supporter of the Environment Minister.
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CTV: The websites, Conservatives for Prentice and Draft John Baird for Conservative Party Leader allege to be grassroots organizations and are quick to point out that neither is endorsed by the Conservative MPs in question.
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