By Lloyd Mackey

SEVEN is the name of a magazine jointly published by Promise Keepers Canada and Fellowship for Print Witness, Inc., the publishers of the ChristianWeek group of newspapers.

Issued every two months, Seven focuses on themes of interest to Christian men who want, simply put, to keep their promises to their families, churches and communities and nation.

The November issue has several articles about conflict resolution and management. So, given my interest in the subject -- particularly as it applies in an adversarial political setting -- these articles caught my eye.

One piece pointed out that "the research on conflict typically describes five styles for resolving it -- competing, collaborating, compromising, accommodating and avoiding.

I have to say that, in my own consideration of the subject, in terms of applying it to Ottawa politics, I tended to like the concepts of collaborating, compromising and accommodating, in that order. Competing, it seemed to me, might remove people in conflict with each other from their mutual proximity, but it didn't do much to provide permanent conflict resolution. And avoiding conflict might just be delaying the opportunity to face the issues needing resolution.

All this was passing through my mind during the high drama brought about by the concocting and virtual collapse of the three-party coalition, the prorogation of Parliament and the appointing of Michael Ignatieff as interim Liberal leader.

As long as the coalition idea was in active play, it appeared that competition was the name of the game being played by NDP leader Jack Layton. While collaboration was the apparent goal of getting the NDP, Liberals and Bloc more-or-less together, the most significant player, the governing Conservative party, was not being permitted to join in the collaboration.

Then, in an attempt to get cooler heads to prevail, the prime minister took the short-term step of avoidance.

That led to the Liberals distancing themselves from the coalition in a rather strident fashion, by convincing Stephane Dion that he should step away from the Liberal leadership sooner rather than later. And it did not take long for Ignatieff's main competitors for the crown to withdraw, leaving him a clear field.

Suddenly, collaboration between the Conservatives and Liberals, at least in terms of getting a recession-tackling budget through at the end of January, became a real option.

In follow-up to Harper's desire, on prorogation day, to do his part to "build trust on both sides," he reverted to his recently derailed intention to reach out to all parties in appropriate ways and encourage their working together.

It seems to be working, so far. Liberal economic critics Scott Brison and John McCallum spoke of a cordial, businesslike meeting with Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. The same terminology was used with respect to a preliminary meeting between Ignatieff and Harper.

And, as I write, Flaherty is meeting in Saskatoon with the finance ministers of Canada's ten provinces and three territories.

Speaking in conflict resolution terms, I would suggest that both Ignatieff and Harper are behaving wisely. And, if they can continue to do so, they could both come out winners.

That assertion might raise a few eyebrows. After all, how can Harper be a winner if Ignatieff becomes prime minister? Or vice versa?

The answer to that question comes in Ignatieff's insistence that his first obligation is to rebuild the Liberal party, not to knock off the prime minister with either a coalition or an early election. True, both possibilities remain as options. But if goodwill prevails, they will dissipate.

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My suggestion is that both men, if they play chess at all, are pretty good at seeing several moves ahead. They and their parties have both conflicting and collaborative interests. The conflict comes from being adversaries in a parliamentary system. The collaborative opportunity is that their common objective should be the betterment of life in Canada.

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All of which brings us to the fact that Harper has announced his intention to appoint senators for the 18 vacant seats in the upper house.

For some months, the Conservatives have been fielding pressure from various places to get the vacancies filled, rather than holding out for the time when Senate reform can become a reality.

Let me declare, parenthetically, my own potential conflict of interest in any Senate deliberations. For some time, I have been giving serious consideration to running for a BC Senate seat, should God give me health and should elections ever become a possibility in my home province.

That said, I found myself intrigued with a column by Margaret Kopala, research and policy development director for the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies. Her column appeared in the December 13 issue of the Ottawa Citizen.

Kopala, from this perspective, had some practical suggestions that fit nicely with some of the conflict resolution models we have been discussing.

Entitled Senate reform is still possible, the piece urges prudence in the prime minister's appointees.

The heart of the article reads thusly:

Given . . . the degree of partisanship that has infected the Senate, Mr Harper has an opportunity to clear the decks, start fresh and create a climate for Senate reform that has a real chance of succeeding. How? The answer is simple. By appointing credible senators who will command respect everywhere, but particularly in the Senate itself. Most particularly, they should command respect from Liberal and other senators whose co-operation will be necessary to sponsor a standalone amendment on Senate reform.

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Lloyd Mackey is a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa and author of Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Governance (ECW Press, 2006), More Faithful Than We Think: Stories and Insights on Canadian Leaders Doing Politics Christianly (BayRidge Books, 2005) and Like Father, Like Son: Ernest Manning and Preston Manning (ECW Press, 1997). Lloyd can be reached at lmackey@canadianchristianity.com.

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Dion should have said no
If a week is a long time in politics, how about two years? Considering the current gobsmacking circumstances in Ottawa, it would be unfair to drag out what a commentator said in 2006, and hold it against him. I wouldn't do that to my colleagues, but, in a spirit of penance, I will do it to myself. Here is what I wrote in these pages almost exactly two years ago, days after Stephane Dion's victory in the Liberal leadership race.
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December 18/2008