The Globe and Mail

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1. Once more, with feeling. Stephen Harper’s Conservatives are fear-mongering again over the spectre of a deal between separatists, socialists and Liberals, declaring that the “coalition risk has returned to Canada.”

This “risk” includes putting Canada’s economic recovery in jeopardy and giving a policy veto to the separatist Bloc Quebecois, according to a series of talking points circulated to Tory supporters and MPs this week. A coalition, the Conservatives say, would be “recipe for disaster.”

“Given that Michael Ignatieff doesn’t have the popular support he needs to win an election outright; given his own pledge that he was ‘prepared’ to enter into a Coalition Government and to lead that Government; and given the urging of various Liberals to pursue a Coalition, it is clear that the Coalition risk has returned to Canada,” the memo says.

To prove their thesis the Tory strategists point to an article in the Hill Times that examines the Grits’ sagging national poll numbers and speculates about a replacement for Mr. Ignatieff as Liberal leader.

In the article Ottawa South Liberal MP David McGuinty talks about the coalition government in Britain. “What they’ve decided to do is exactly what I think we should be doing in Canada, every day in the House of Commons,” Mr. McGuinty says. “We should be working together to make sure we put the interests of the Canadian people first above all else.”

The Conservative strategists seized upon this as proof of renewed coalition activity brewing. “The Hill Times reports that the Liberals and NDP do not have popular support they require to form a Coalition without the support of the Bloc Quebecois,” the Tory talking points say. “But that isn’t stopping senior Liberal MP David McGuinty from becoming the latest Ignatieff Liberal to speak out in favour of a Coalition.”

In this latest missive the Conservatives are attempting to bring back all of those bad memories from late 2008 when former Liberal leader Stéphane Dion, NDP Leader Jack Layton and Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe attempted to form a coalition government. Canadians spoke loud and clear in rejecting the idea.

“A Liberal-NDP-Bloc Quebecois Coalition would be led by a man who left Canada for 34 years and professed his love for America,” the talking points say. “It would put our economic recovery in the hands of former NDP Premier Bob Rae and current NDP leader Jack Layton. And it would contain a policy veto for the Bloc Quebecois – a party that doesn’t even believe in a united Canada.”

But the Liberals fired back this morning, noting that when he was opposition leader

Mr. Harper signed a letter to the Governor-General “stating that he was willing to work with the NDP and the Bloc to form the government.”

“Yes, that was a coalition between three parties, including the Bloc,” a senior Ignatieff official says. “And the Conservatives were in the thick of it. So please, stop pointing to that scarecrow!”

The official says that instead of issuing “their little release on something taking place in their mind, maybe they should tell us how we got to a $1-billion bill for G8/G20 security. Because they improvised on location? Some managers!”

2. All aboard. Defence Minister Peter MacKay was at a reception with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last night in New York. The event was to mark Fleet Week and peacekeeping at the United Nations; it took place aboard HMCS Athabaskan.

Mr. MacKay, however, did more than just make small talk. He took a lot time to lobby for the United Nations Security Council seat for Canada.

The Conservative government has been pushing hard for the temporary seat that will be decided next year. In fact, earlier this month Prime Minister Stephen Harper received the support of Croatian Prime Minister when he traveled to Zagreb during a visit to Europe.

Canada is in a three-way fight with Germany and Portugal for the coveted position.