My take on MMP: Coalition vs. Minority

Well, the debate about MMP heats up now that Dan has waded into the mess, stepping in against the proposal. One of the points that came up a bit reading over the comments was the distinction between coalitions and minorities, and how they differ, what they mean, and which, if either, is stable. I'll format this message a bit more as a rant than a point/my take thing.

So, first off, a few basics. A coalition is basically just a formal alliance. In general, they would last basically until the dominant party feels they can run it alone. And under an MMP system, I don't see parties being overly excited about breaking off coalitions, since getting an absolute majority government is severely diminished. Thus, an MMP coalition would probably end up being fairly stable.

And overall, coalitions aren't necessarily a bad thing. In general, nobody fits perfectly into one party. I am a Liberal, but I like some ideas the NDP has, and some Conservative ideas make sense as well. The Liberals and NDP would never join together unless if it was a real crisis, but any other combination could make some sense, in a way, and really wouldn't be so bad. Luckily we live in a progressive enough society so that any partnership basically needs a party in the middle and a party on the wings of the political spectrum. For all that we hate the Conservatives federally, this pseudo Conservative-Bloc/NDP partnership hasn't completely destabilized the country or killed off every institution that we love. (It's not exactly on track with most of Canada on files like Afghanistan or the Environment, but that's another matter).

But for all the good that they can be, my big problem with people advocating for them as either a positive of MMP or sort of a consolation prize for no more majority governments is the following: I don't see it happening, at least under our current alignments.

Sure, people might point to stable coalition overseas, but the way our current system is set up, the only coalitions I see possible are Liberal-Green or Conservative-Green. As weak as the NDP are, they're just too mainstream to actually join into an alliance. People saw their demands to vote for a throne speech. I can't imagine they would back down for a coalition, and they've already asked for way too much to be reasonable. And as much as they tag-teamed McGuinty in the debate with the Tories, I think they're just too much opposed on certain key points to be able to hold a stable coalition together.

So some people might still point out something along the lines of, "hey, wait a minute. Wouldn't a Green-Liberal/Tory alliance actually be really good for everyone?" And sure, for a bit. But honestly, a system where the Greens are the only party to enter into a coalition won't work.

I'm not an expert on overseas politics, but everyone seems to bring up New Zealand and Germany. And from a quick wikipedia scan, I gather the reason they work is they have 2 main parties, and then a handful of other ones that all get the 5-10% of the vote necessary. That way, you have a choice in minor parties to get your required votes. If the vote breaks down 35-30-10-10-8-7, then you need to pick 2/4 of the smaller ones to pass your bills. But with our current system, with 3 parties that have a reasonable shot at succeeding, we really don't have any respectable minor parties to ally with.

As I pointed out before, there were only 3 parties who got the 3% vote threshold in the last election. Barring any of the big 3 breaking down, I don't think our current political alignments are ready to force these minority/coalition governments on us, unless if you want a perpetual Green-XXX government in power.