The president of the young Liberals said he wants the parties to unite and defeat Harper. Now is this Coalition actually realistic? Penny Collentte thinks not.
Penny Collenette, a former advisor to prime minister Jean Chrétien,
told CTV News Channel's Power Play that talking about a coalition or
formal merger before an election is not a realistic possibility.
I think she brings up a good point. Talks will only hurt the Liberals. Unless they actually have a coalition. Then we have a different problem, the government would have a majority, but Michael Ignatieff might have some problems proposing bills that all three of them will agree with.
A recent Angus Reid Poll said the Conservatives would defeat a coalition headed by Ignatieff.
So this is not even popular. I think that the Liberal party should not have a coalition. Because first, this coalition could not hold up. With the NDP leader Jack Layton having a much more different platform than Mr. Ignatieff the coalition could have many cracks. If you think of the U.K. election as an example of a coalition that is working "good eye". In the U.K the conservatives had a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. Now, unlike Canada, they have a third party that's platform is very center of the road, so this idea of Jack Layton having a coalition is not so possible here. I support coalition governments when the party in power can form a stable majority government, or when the opposition parties think that they can come together to form a stable government.
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Politics/20100601/politics-coalition-100601/
FYI: The Angus Reid poll did not ask about coalitions. It polled people asking about a new party created out of a merger of the Libs and NDP and led by either Iggy, Rae or Layton. The media totally screwed up when reporting on this, always referring to coalition scenarios. The poll is very clear - it wasn't about coalitions, but about a brand new, merged party.
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