Losers may be more powerful than Prime Minister Stephen Harper thinks.
Harper raised a few eyebrows Thursday when he boldly declared that "losers don't get to form coalitions" at a news conference in London with British Prime Minister David Cameron.
It may have made for a neat soundbite, but constitutional experts say it's not quite accurate.
"It seems to me like the kind of thing he wished he hadn't said," said Ned Franks, a professor emeritus at Queen's University and a widely consulted constitutional expert.
Under the British parliamentary model, a party can have the confidence of the House without actually having the most seats.
Which means losers can lead.
"After an election in which no party has a majority, losers (the opposition parties) can form coalitions," said Craig Forcese, a law professor at the University of Ottawa.
"(That) doesn't quite have the ring of the PM's zinger, but then the world is usually a more complicated place than partisan political statements would suggest."
Under the Westminster system, incumbent prime ministers get first crack at forming a government -- regardless of the election results.
But the customary assumption is that the party that wins the most votes should be given the first chance. It's up to them to then gain the confidence of the House of Commons.
"Winners get to form governments unless they make it very difficult for anybody to let them do that," said Ken Dickerson, program manager of the Centre for Constitutional Studies at the University of Alberta.
"Basically, losers don't get to form coalitions unless winners make it easy for them."
That's almost what happened in 2008.
Harper's opponents ganged up against him when he included poison pills in the government's first economic update after the 2008 election.
The Liberals and the NDP formed a coalition with the support of the Bloc Quebecois, a move that threatened to unseat the Conservatives until Parliament was prorogued.
Though the coalition fizzled during the ensuing break, a similar prospect has been raised again in recent weeks.
Some Liberals and New Democrats are talking about a unite-the-left movement, while some have been musing about the possibility of future coalitions.
The issue even threatens to become a divisive one within the Liberal party. Leader Michael Ignatieff has maintained a steadfast opposition to a formal working arrangement with the NDP, while some members of his party are keen on the idea.
Harper's blunt assessment Thursday came when he was asked what he thought of Britain's new coalition government.
He was asked that question while standing next to Cameron, who became prime minister through a coalition arrangement between his Conservatives and the left-leaning Liberal Democrats.
Harper said Canada's situation and Britain's were different.
He noted that the Canadian coalition in 2008 would have been propped up by a party, the Bloc Quebecois, dedicated to breaking up the country.
And there was another distinction, he said: His Conservatives, like Cameron's, had finished first in the election.
"The verdict of public opinion was pretty clear -- losers don't get to form coalitions," Harper said.
"Winners are the ones who form governments."
But as Franks points out, the machinations of parliamentary politics can change one's perspective of what counts as winning.
For a case in point, Harper needs only turn to another political ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu's Likud party actually finished behind rival Kadima in the 2009 election, but it was Netanyahu who was able to cobble together a coalition large enough to form a majority.
"Coalitions can turn losers into winners," said Franks.
