Harper's hypocrisy & flip-flop over minority coalition

The Montreal Gazette:

It's a question that moved this week to the heart of the 2011 federal election: Can a second-place party in a minority Parliament legitimately form a government?

In a CBC interview aired Thursday, Conservative leader Stephen Harper offered an unequivocal answer — No — and suggested any such move by his rival parties to form a "coalition" in a divided, post-election House of Commons would spark a debate over "constitutional law."

But in another televised interview in 1997 — when he was trying to chart a path to bring Canada's conservatives to power in a Liberal-dominated Parliament — Harper's answer to the same question was a resounding yes.

There is strong evidence, too, that Harper himself — despite his own denials today — was prepared in 2004 to become a "second-place prime minister" by allying with the Bloc Quebecois and NDP in a "co-opposition" arrangement to defeat the minority Liberal government of Paul Martin.

Continue reading here.