Go ahead! Take your ball and go home.
Michael Ignatieff says he won't give the Harper government a blank cheque to get $3 billion in stimulus spending flowing quickly, despite an election threat from the prime minister. Harper warned that opposition refusal to approve creation of the fund would constitute defeat of his minority government.
How is this not surprising? The Liberals, I repeat: the Liberals, want fiscal accountability in parliament on 3 billion dollars in spending, and the Prime Minister says that he'll take us into an election if he doesn't get the cash at his request.
Ignatieff is right: it would be irresponsible for him to simply sign off on 3 billion dollars without an action-plan. Without knowing where the money is going to be spent. Without accountability to Canadians. Harper's response? Let's have an election!
Iganteiff calls this "aggressive partisanship," I call it being an asshole. Harper's lust for a majority government is going to be his downfall. Whether or not Ignatieff can keep up this kind of transparency and high regard for accountability and due-process if he becomes Prime Minister, is another story.
But like the confidence motion Harper so desperately wants, Ignateiff will have to cross that moral bridge when he comes to it.
Ignatieff is right: it would be irresponsible for him to simply sign off on 3 billion dollars without an action-plan. Without knowing where the money is going to be spent. Without accountability to Canadians. Harper's response? Let's have an election!
Iganteiff calls this "aggressive partisanship," I call it being an asshole. Harper's lust for a majority government is going to be his downfall. Whether or not Ignatieff can keep up this kind of transparency and high regard for accountability and due-process if he becomes Prime Minister, is another story.
But like the confidence motion Harper so desperately wants, Ignateiff will have to cross that moral bridge when he comes to it.
Labels: Accountability, CPC, LPC, Michael Ignatieff, Recession, Stephen Harper
posted by Dylan at 3/04/2009
2 Comments:
Too bad Iggy didn't make this "stand" before telling Harper cons the libs would support his budget - you know cross all the t's and dot all the i's.
So now he is making all sorts of noise, while the crap is hitting the fan all over the place - think Stelco - and these 2 fools are playing "chicken."
Meanwhile Rome burns - it shows where Iggy's main focus is - and it's not on what is happening to "real Canadians" losing their jobs.
One should widen their optics to get the full picture - folks would have been impressed if Iggy and his crew had "acted tough" before he sellout, but now too little too late. But sure rah, rah Iggy - thump your chest.
Iggy may be an ideological tourist and carpetbagger, but he's no idiot. He knows full well that disbursing the stimulus funds is going to be a messy, ugly process--with all kinds of waste, inefficiency and latent corruption. He also knows that Harper has no choice but to risk owning that mess, if he's to keep his government's carcass off the electoral spit.
Iggy's going to press Harper hard on both fronts: he's going to demand action and deplore reckless haste, all the while reaping the rewards of the government's flat-footed disorientation and its inevitable fiscal missteps.
So, Stevie's in for a year of brutal rectal reaming. By early 2010 (if he survives that long), you'll be able to sail a yacht through his asshole...
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