It was Michael Ignatieff who said it first.

Well, this version anyway: "A coalition if necessary, but not necessarily a coalition."

Rosemary Barton

Since then, Liberal MPs are spouting it roundly at caucus ins and outs.

It is perhaps useful, then, to remember that Ignatieff's comment is not quite an original thought.

It is borrowed heavily from a defining moment in Canadian history.

In fact, it was Mackenzie King who first coined the term in a completely different context.

That was in 1942 when King was under a great deal of pressure from the military to conscript soldiers to send to Europe, a plan that was deeply unpopular in certain parts of Canada, Quebec especially.

King had previously promised only volunteers would be sent to fight. To release him from that commitment, he took it to the Canadian people in a plebiscite with a policy that was described as "conscription if necessary, but not necessarily conscription."

King survived the conscription debate. (His government won a third majority in 1945 though with a reduced seat count.)

We will see if Ignatieff will survive the proposed coalition with the NDP that his predecessor, Stéphane Dion, set in motion.

Or, perhaps more importantly, if the coalition will survive Ignatieff.

— Rosemary Barton