Could we have a coalition?

While election talk heats up across Canada, political observers are speculating on what the country’s political landscape will look like in a few months or years.

Some predict that if the Conservatives fail to win a majority in the next election, the Harper government will be toppled by a coalition consisting of the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois.

The possibility has evoked a strong reaction from many Canadians, some of whom have expressed their views on our Facebook page.

One said a coalition of "three mindless twits" would oversee a "cash grab of Alberta’s wealth."

Another user said, "Coalition all the way! better than a Harper majority!"

Coalition governments, in which two or more political parties enter into a formal agreement to govern together, have a storied history in Canada.

Before Confederation in 1867, several coalition governments held power. One of the most prominent was the so-called Great Coalition, which ruled for three years starting in 1864.

In the face of instability and legislative deadlock, opposing lawmakers formed a coalition to create constitutional change. This government ruled the Province of Canada – which included Canada West (now Ontario) and Canada East (now Quebec) – leading it into Confederation despite religious and linguistic divisions.

Another coalition government was formed in 1917.

The Conservatives led by Robert Borden, some (though not all) Liberals and various independents formed the Union Government while the so-called Great War was raging in Europe.

The coalition’s primary purpose was to broaden support for conscription, which was wildly unpopular in much of French Canada. The coalition managed to push conscription through parliament, but when the war ended the coalition did too.

After the Conservatives formed a minority government in the last election, in 2008, opposition leaders announced they were forming a coalition to unseat Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

The 2008 election

The Liberals and the NDP planned to create a formal coalition, and the Bloc Quebecois’ promised to support it on confidence matters for 18 months. But when parliament was suspended, the would-be coalition fell apart.

Coalition governments are quite common in other countries.

They have been quite popular in Germany, where the two major political parties, the Christian Democratic Union Party and the Social Democratic Party, have rarely been able to form majority governments.

Other countries whose populaces are well acquainted with coalition governments are Belgium, Finland, India, Israel, Japan, Australia and the United Kingdom.

In the United Kingdom, a general election last year resulted in a hung parliament, after which the Conservatives, which had won the most seats, formed a coalition with the Liberal Democrats to gain a parliamentary majority. It was the two parties’ first power-sharing deal since 1945.