On second thought

Tom Flanagan talks to the Winnipeg Free Press about Michael Ignatieff, attack ads, the coalition and political party funding.

During last winter’s constitutional crisis, Flanagan wrote in The Globe and Mail that "Gross violations of democratic principles would be involved in handing government to the coalition without getting approval from voters." A week earlier, Harper, too, claimed the opposition could not take power without an election.

Flanagan now appears to have shifted his position and backed away from Harper’s. "I wouldn’t rule out parties coming together to form a coalition and whatever Mr. Harper may have said in the heat of the moment I don’t think should be interpreted as constitutional theory because he was in a fight for his life."