Tom Flanagan has a Globe op-ed where he muses about the Liberals needing to “re-activate” the coalition in order to bring Harper down. Yeah…because Stephen Harper has never voted with the “separatists” and the “socialists” to bring down a Liberal government.

His slightly more valid point is that Ignatieff doesn’t enjoy the same benefit Harper does of being able to stroll over to the GG’s to ask for an election whenever it strikes his fancy (man, we should really have some sort of fixed election date law or something to prevent that, eh?). So Iggy will need Bloc and NDP votes to force an election. But, really, this shouldn’t be too hard. Jack’s given the Liberals such a hard time for propping up Harper that he’s going to look like a complete moron if he starts singing “backing down and loving it” himself. And Mr. “I will never make a deal with the separatists” would have a bit of ‘splaining to do, if he has to rely on Gilles Duceppe to keep his government afloat.

And, realistically, how long could the Tories survive on Bloc or NDP support alone? One month? Three months? Short of a formal coalition deal (hmm…), eventually an issue will come along where the opposition parties decide to take Harper out. Or, failing that, a poll will come along that encourages them to.

Now, that’s not to say the Liberals necessarily should pull the plug anytime soon. But I think Dr. Tom may have over-estimated Harper’s ability to survive in this parliament without Liberal support.