One of these things is not like the others....
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New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton (L), Liberal leader Stephane Dion (C) and Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe take part in a news conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Dec. 1, 2008.
The biggest Liberal loser in the party's electoral history, a self-admitted campaign failure who advocated carbon taxes as sound economy policy and lacks significant Western Canada representation, seems set to become prime minister next week.
Forgive them. They know not what they've done.
Giddy opposition party leaders have decreed nothing will stop them from toppling this government next Monday to create the first governing coalition in almost 100 years, a 30-month, three-headed, Liberal-led monster bonded to New Democrats and Quebec separatists by four pages of policy duct tape.
The government's defeat can now only be avoided if Stephen Harper prematurely pulls the plug on the barely started session of Parliament this week. That seems a desperate and shameless tactic that would merely delay the inevitable until early next year and give the fledgling coalition time to solidify.
This means an electorate that cast a third of its votes for the Conservatives will have their representation replaced by a hodge-podge of lowest common denominator policies produced almost overnight by parties leaning left and toward leaving.
An election no longer seems to be an option. The coalition, despite lacking any modern precedent, has done an admirable job of building the case for securing the Governor-General's blessing to try to govern until June, 2011, subject to change without notice.
That will put the keys to 24 Sussex Drive in the hands of Stéphane Dion, an Official Opposition Leader who has already announced his resignation and set May 2, 2009, as the date to crown his replacement.
The three MPs bidding to replace him will be senior ministers in the new cabinet. Michael Ignatieff, Bob Rae and Dominic LeBlanc will divide their time between governing a country at perilous risk from recession while campaigning hard to win the prime minister's job.
This move is clearly payback for years of facing a Stephen Harper who lay awake at night scheming on ways to eliminate or embarrass the Liberal party without fearing his own vulnerable state as a minority government leader.
That ensures there will be a fury in the land, particularly in the West and specifically in Alberta. Even if New Democrat rookie Linda Duncan of Edmonton becomes the province's token cabinet minister, replacing the five Alberta Conservatives in power now, the frustration of seeing electorally legitimized power seized by Toronto-based Liberals partnered with separatist forces in Quebec will be revolt-worthy in the West.
While the discipline of power may keep the coalition together, more or less flying in loose formation for perhaps a year or even longer, this is not a system of sustainable government as much as it is a power grab minus a compelling reason to exist.
It circumvents the public's Oct. 14 election verdict for no good reason, given the government has capitulated on every grievance their opponents spotted in the fiscal update. This makes it a personal putsch, not a rational rebellion.
It puts Canada on an uncertain track under leadership that will change again within months. In the meantime, Stephen Harper may well join Stéphane Dion as a former prime minister, the price for boneheadedly browbeating his opponents in dangerous times.
The deficit, already accepted as necessary to fight job losses and auto sector failure, is bound to be larger than expected as the coalition unleashes hefty infrastructure relief, industrial bailouts and unspecified housing construction and retrofitting. No projected price tag was attached to the plan Monday.
Under coalition control, the government's size will likely bloat to deal with social issues, environmental policy will be hardened against the energy sector, the large number of Senate vacancies will be restacked with mostly Liberal partisans and Quebec appeasement moves will be even more rampant than currently exist.
It must be acknowledged the coalition's organization is more advanced than anyone could have expected, given that the precipitating move, the botched fiscal update, was less than 100 hours old when the accord was signed Monday afternoon.
There comes a time where an aura descends on political leaders. Stephen Harper always projected confident, unflappable leadership. That changed Monday when his sagging shoulders and lacklustre performance gave him the look of a lost cause trying to come to mental grips with his six-week squandering of the largest minority mandate in Canadian history.
It's still an awful hard squint to see Mr. Dion as a prime minister power-sharing with Jack Layton, but it seems likely to become a reality.
Stéphane Dion is about to get the ultimate do-over to answer this question: Who actually won the last election?
Now, I'm a Globe and Mail girl myself, but that's a pretty good summary it seems. Gotta love the university bubble, when someone like me who tries to stay aware of political goings on around the world gets blind sided with this today. Amazing.