If the present numbers hold – and, admittedly, there’s no certainty in that – it’s possible that Canada is heading for a constitutional crisis unlike any other in living memory. Imagine, if you will, that we wake up on January 24th to the following: 120 Conservative seats, 110 Liberal seats, 58 Bloc seats, and 20 NDP seats. The popular vote is: Liberal 33%, Tory 32%, NDP 16%, Bloc 14%. Prime Minister Martin goes off to see Mme. Jean and says to her, “I will not be resigning, Madame Governor General, I believe that I received the most votes and that, together with the NDP, we can form a minority government.” If he does that, what happens next?

There is, to my memory, no precedent for such a situation. There have been cases (most notably 1925-1926 in this country) of a party without even a plurality of seats serving in government – but not under circumstances such as this. Essentially, the Martin government would rely upon the Conservative aversion to working with the Bloc – and the media’s mantra of “Canadians do not want another election” to force them to back down and, at a minimum, allow a Liberal government to move through a Throne Speech.

Think that it’s impossible? Let’s imagine the situation. After the election, the Liberals’ allies in the media fill the press with stories pointing out that the Liberals/NDP achieved nearly a majority of the vote (or perhaps even a majority) and warn the Conservatives against forming an unstable minority government which would, in plain truth, be wholly dependent upon the Bloc.

Frankly, I think they’d have us over a barrel. I think that we’d back down. Especially given the fact that the independence of Mme. Jean is certainly in question and it remains a distinct possibility that, after a Tory-Bloc vote against a Liberal-NDP throne speech, she might allow a request by M. Martin for a dissolution to be followed by a General Election rather than offering the Tories a chance to form a government.

So, how do we avoid this? Well, there’s only one really good way: to win hard, rather than win soft.