The Globe and Mail

As Ned Franks points out in today's Globe and Mail — and contrary to the position expressed by Prime Minister Harper yesterday — it would be perfectly constitutional for the Governor-General to refuse a request by Prime Minister Harper to dissolve the House of Commons and call an election. For this to happen, however, “the three opposition parties would have to produce a written agreement guaranteeing support for a Liberal government or a Liberal-NDP coalition.” Mr. Franks, one of our leading constitutional scholars, also says that the agreement would have to be made public and it would have to specify that it remained in effect for a set period of time.

To these ends, according to a report in Le Devoir,

“the Bloc is participating indirectly in the discussions between the Liberals and the NDP. Discussions among the three opposition parties relate principally to a letter of agreement to be submitted to the Governor-General, Michaëlle Jean, in the event the government is defeated in the coming days….

"The most important question for the Governor-General is whether a new government would be stable. She would not want to know who the Ministers would be, she simply wants to be assured that the new government would have the confidence of the House. That's what we're working on,' according to a source.”

In St. John's last night, the Telegram reports on a speech by Liberal leadership candidate (and current Deputy Leader) Michael Ignatieff:

“Mr. Ignatieff agreed with Mr. Harper that the Bloc, the NDP and the Liberals have little in common, but he said all three parties agree they won't support the Conservatives' economic plan.”

In the Ottawa Citizen, by contrast, Liberal MP Marlene Jennings expresses a rather startling view of the Bloc:
 
"All of the three parties are discussing, we are looking at all the common ground we are agreed upon," she said. "The No. 1 priority for the NDP, the Bloc Québécois, the Liberal Party of Canada, is the economy, is the Canadian people."
 
Governing with the NDP during a time of recession is fraught with peril for the Liberals, especially after vowing during the campaign not to form a coalition with them. However, one really has to wonder about the Liberal Party—a party whose brand has always been closely associated with national unity—trucking and trading with a party dedicated to breaking up Canada. Not for high principle, mind you, but simply to restore itself to power.