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Macleans.ca

Canada’s magazine

Who gets to govern? Venturing deep into the post-May 2 scenario weeds

The question, it seems to me, is a simple one: can the party that didn’t win the most seats in a Canadian election legitimately form a government? Well, I guess it would be better to say deceptively simple.

The Madness: Democrats vs Parliamentarians

As we lead up to the return of the House, battle lines are being drawn over the legitimacy of the forgotten-but-not-dead coalition. Two clear positions have emerged: On the one side, there is a group we can call the Democrats. The Democrats believe that while the coalition may be constitutionally  ok in a narrow, legal sense, it violates basic principles of democratic legitimacy. Two prominent Democrats are Michael Bliss and Norman Spector.