A political machine that goes "Byng"!

[bcholmes]

What's different about the current Harper craziness and the Byng-King matter? Seriously, I thought that the fall-out of Byng-King was that the whole "let's go from non-confidence to coalition of the opposition" isn't politically okay?

I am full of the not understanding.

Comments

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

One obvious difference is that Harper has not actually asked the GG to dissolve Parliament. I don't know if that makes it better or worse.

[jeffreyab.livejournal.com]

People are also bringing up the Peterson Rae deal of 1986 which unseated Miller and lead directly to a Liberal government with no election.

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

But wasn't Rae-Peterson immediately following the election? The rules, as I understand them, are that whatever party (or group of parties) can control parliament after the election get to form the government. Miller had more seats but couldn't form the government without NDP support.

Harper is, theoretically, in the same place, but the time for asserting a coalition government would have been immediately after the election. Or at least that's how I understand the rules.

[jeffreyab.livejournal.com]

The 1985 election was May 2. 1985 and the government was defeated on June 18, 1985 so the timeline is not too far off.

There is no deadline to defeating a government.

Alexander Mackenzie defeated MacDonald in 1873 after he had been in office over a year and formed a government. He then called an election for Jan 1874 but things were different then and Mackenzie was bringing in electoral reform like the secret ballot and one day elections.

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

Hm. It looks like you're right.

I stand corrected.

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

No, I take it back. The Miller government was defeated at the conclusion of debate of the Throne Speech, which is first opportunity to prove confidence for a new government. Miller never attained confidence.

[the_axel]

I read it as Byng-King has established a precedent for the current circumstances so it is okay to do that.