THE COALITION

I find the entire issue quite astonishing - that it is an issue that is.
What I find distressing is when the TV news decides to do a "streeter," asking people on the street what they think.

If you know anything about TV news you know that one of the worst jobs is to have the assignment editor send you out to do streeters. First of all, most of the people you stop on the street breeze by refusing to talk, often without even saying a word. So you have to pursue each one diligently. What you get, aside from an occasional "pearl" of wisdom, is pure rubbish. The people responding know little, if anything, about how a coalition works in the parliamentary system. They, the people in the street, have opinions backed by little information. The worst ones are the naysayers who can't wait to let us all know what crooks, cheats, opportunists, liars, and scalawags politicians are. (Try running for office and see how much fun it is to be a "crook.")

I am dismayed by the complete lack of cool from our Prime Minister. His hold on Quebec is tenuous at best, having wrecked his big chance to form a majority by angering Quebec, and one spokesman in particular, with his planned cuts to culture and the arts. It may have been enough to cost him the seats in Quebec that could have given him a majority.

Now, not content with having alienated the province, he is attacking Duceppe and the Bloc. Most Quebecois do not, at this reading, want to separate. The Bloc knows that. But Quebecers are a proud people and they will not take kindly to Harper's swings at one of theirs - even though they may not have voted for the Bloc. That Mr. Harper, is called shooting yourself in the foot.

If Parliament expresses its dissatisfaction with the job the government is doing, and can get enough votes for no confidence, the government falls.

The idle tongues that proclaim: "The Conservatives won the election" have no idea what winning is all about. They had no clear majority. It saddens me that so many people do not understand how this works. It saddens me even more when I bear a well meaning s=high school kids say to the TV camera: "Majority rules. That's what democracy is all about." When she is old enough she may read John Stewart Mill and his ideas about what he called the "tyranny of the majority." The majority has the right to govern unless they throw it away,

As for coalitions - doesn't anyone remember when after the Harris Government was put out the Conservatives under Frank Miller actually won the election. But Frank Miller did not get to be Premier. David Peterson and Bob Rae formed a coalition government.

You are entitled to an opinion - but only if you get the facts straight. Otherwise, who cares what you think?