Coyne Writes: "to avert the far more destabilizing consequences if the coalition, Bloc and all, had been allowed to seize power."

To clarify, the Bloc were not going to be part of the governing coalition. I'm not sure why this myth is continually passed on. To be part of the Government you need to have cabinet positions. It's called the executive. The Bloc, for obvious reasons (ie. they are opposed to the existence of Quebec remaining within Canada, remember?) were not to be part of Government. The agreement between the three parties simply stated that the Bloc would support the governing coalition on all confidence motions for a stated period of time (a few months, I seem to recall). That's quite different, very different actually, than being part of the Government. Let's get our history straight, okay?