Over the weekend, my friend Grace noted that “there [were] rumblings that two of [Canada’s federal] opposition parties, the Liberals and New Democrats, [were] in the process of brokering a deal to throw out the Tories and form a coalition government with the support of the Bloc Québécois.”

(Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, or “Tories,” won the most seats in October’s election, but they only won a minority and so formed, or re-formed, a minority government.)

Well, the deal is done. And, if Harper’s government falls (and, then, if Governor General Michaëlle Jean asks the opposition parties to form a government), the new prime minister will be…

Stéphane Dion, whom I supported for the Liberal leadership way back when but whose performance as leader, culminating in October’s election (he is currently a lame duck, having announced his resignation and awaiting the selection of a new leader), has been, well, a disaster.

With the Liberals utterly rudderless, though — the new rudder, er, leader, will likely be either Michael Ignatieff or Bob Rae — Dion is pretty much the only suitable compromise. (He leans left and so is suitable to the left-wing NDP and the left-leaning BQ.) Besides, he’d only be the interim PM until a new Liberal leader is selected next spring.

As a Liberal, more or less, I’m all for this. The Conservatives didn’t win a majority in the last election, and so this is hardly some sort of coup. If the three opposition parties think they can govern together, and have a deal to that effect, then they should be allowed to do so — if the Conservatives genuinely lose the confidence of the House. It is unlikely that yet another election would solve anything, and so the only alternative — and ones hopes that Jean, whom I find rather underwhelming, understands this — would be to turn to the Lib.-NDP-BQ coalition. And yet, questions abound:

– Would Dion try to stay in office? (Likely not. The three leadership candidates — Ignatieff, Rae, and LeBlanc — all support the coalition but surely want Dion out. What’s more, Dion just isn’t that popular in the party anymore.)

– How would the Liberal leadership candidates handle themselves in Cabinet? (Fairly well. After all, they have an interest in making it work.)

– Would it work? (For a time, probably. It would formally be a Lib.-NDP governing coalition — the Liberals would get PM, Finance, and most of the other Cabinet spots, though NDP leader Jack Layton would no doubt get a top position (foreign affairs?) — with the BQ, according to the The Globe and Mail, “expected to promise to support the coalition to survive for at least a year, which would allow for the passage of two budgets.” And the emphasis, at least for now, would be on the economic/financial crisis: “The coalition deal includes a multibillion-dollar stimulus package for the troubled economy.” But after that second budget? Who knows? And while there seems now to be agreement between the Liberals and the NDP on the economy, what about other issues like Afghanistan and global warming?)

– Would Canadians support it? (Probably. Harper is calling it a coup, but it’s not, it’s just parliamentary politics. And let’s not forget that Harper didn’t win a majority of seats, let alone a majority of the popular vote. Of course, Conservatives could spin this as an Ontario/Quebec-based plot to seize power from the country’s democratically elected government, and some in the West, where alienation and anti-Central Canada bias run amok, may buy it, but it’s not like Harper and his party are hugely popular across the country. If anything, Canadians may welcome the change, not to mention the multi-partisan effort to address the economy. The Liberals and NDP may also be accused of cozying up to the BQ, a separatist party, but the Tories have a long history of playing on soft nationalist sentiments in Quebec, and, at the moment, the economy is a far more pressing issue that independence for Quebec. Basically, many Canadians have had it with Harper and are looking for new leadership in Ottawa.)

Stay tuned. Who knew Canadian politics could be so exciting? (Well, it often is. This is just more exciting than usual.)

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Dion, Layton, and BQ leader Gilles Duceppe signed the deal yesterday afternoon. “We are ready to form a new government that will address the best interests of the people instead of plunging Canadians into another election,” said Dion.

A confidence vote will likely be held next Monday.

The details:

The opposition parties represent just over 54 per of the popular vote in the Oct. 14 federal election.

Duceppe said the Bloc would not join the coalition government nor have any ministers in cabinet.

A 24-member coalition cabinet would have six New Democrats and 18 Liberals, according to the deal.

The Bloc would support all confidence votes until June 30, 2010, but would be free to vote as it wished on all other non-monetary measures.

The Liberal-NDP pact lasts a year longer, until June 30, 2011.

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The big question: Why did they do it? Here are my preliminary answers (which I wrote in response to a commenter at my place (link below):

I think the Liberals, with a lame-duck leader, were content to go through a leadership contest, settle in, and regroup for the next election. In other words, I don’t think they were looking for this, given their current state of disarray. I think this move was driven by outside forces:

1) It was, apparently, Layton’s idea. The NDP must realize that this is finally an opportunity for it to be in government. Even in the last election, even with an incredibly weak Liberal Party, it was only able to win, like, 18% of the vote. In other words, even with everything in its favour, it’s still just a distant third party. If this works, it will not only be in government but develop a potentially lasting partnership with the Liberals, not least because it is fairly strong out west, where the Liberals are weak.

2) After the election, Harper, like Bush, claimed that he had a stronger mandate to govern. The difference is that Bush actually did win a majority of the votes in 2004. True, Harper won more seats this year than he did in the previous election, but he still only won a minority. That’s not much of a mandate. Certainly not enough of a mandate to push through a radical agenda, which is what he was clearly looking to do.

3) For the opposition parties, this is about their very survival. They had to act in part because the Conservatives were looking to destroy them by eliminating party subsidies. As much as anything, this was the driving force behind the deal.

4) The opposition parties were responding in large part to the government’s economic plan. And, of course, there’s an economic and financial crisis. I suspect that this wouldn’t have happened in more normal times. The opposition parties are evidently putting aside their differences (say, over Afghanistan) in order to work together to stimulate the economy.

(Cross-posted from The Reaction.)