Liberals Claim To Have Grown a Pair, News At Eleven.
October 23, 2008 · By Adam Dyck
According to this article on Dion’s first caucus after seeing his party crash the Hindenburg into the Titanic and set the entire Atlantic on fire, the Liberals plan to stand up to Harper in the House. No more abstaining for these guys, no sir.
I call shenanigans. In this situation, they really only have two choices. Either a) Abstain in critical votes and preserve the minority, or b) vote against the government and plunge the nation into ANOTHER election.
Which would you choose, if you had just come out of your worst general election, ever?
Work the numbers, 143 Conservatives + 2 Independents = 145, so only 10 Liberals need to be absent for any vote. Given Liberal attendance records, no one will even notice 10 of them not there. Just more bluster from the Liberals and the MSM.
The question should be: Can the Liberals afford to go through another election? The CPC probably has more money available to fight a campaign than either the Liberals, NDP or Bloc. I can’t imagine any of the other parties pushing for another election until they remove the credit card slips from their wallets and start replacing them with some cash.
I say they are ALL hurting and PMSH know it. It will appear to be all bravado from the other benches but I believe he has already sent out the olive branches. He KNOWS what he is dealing with TODAY and I predict 12 months,min.
Whoever pulls it…is skr**ed with the electorate. Especially if Quebec goes to this election. EGAD!!
Hunter was on the right track. There’s no need for the Liberals to abstain anymore, with this stronger minority. In a worst-case scenario, the Cons only need to convince 12 members from any party, or the independents, to vote with them. That shouldn’t be hard to do.
Although I believe Hunter was slightly off in the numbers – an abstention does not equal a vote for the other side. If Harper can muster only 145 votes, he would need at least 19 abstentions. Still not typically difficult…
Maybe the Liberals think that they could win another election with one from the list of possible new leaders that has been bantered about. As bad as the last results were ,they still came in SECOND with Dion at the helm.
A Leadership race right before an Election ! Think of all the free air time they would receive from the MSM. The electorate would be lead to believe that this is the only Party in Canada.
The libs have to be careful though….if the Conservatives “happen” to have 20 or so MPs missing, who knows what could happen…..
All the Liberals are saying is that they’re not going to be the ones to bend when considering a confidence vote/motion. In the past parliament, the Liberals willingly let Layton and the Bloc take the upper hand – particularly Layton, who lead the NDP to consistently voting against everything Harper and the Conservative’s put forward. With the Bloc and the NDP voting firmly against the Government, it meant the Liberals were left with the uncomfortable position of abstaining.
If Dion, can stand firm and say, “we’re not going to bend, we will be the official opposition”, it’ll be the other two parties who would have to capitulate and abstain.
It’s really just a game of brinksmanship to establish who has to give in to avoid an election.
No one wants (or can afford!) another election – the Conservative’s know this and will use this to their advantage.
PMSH was 100% right about Canada’s economy.
Everything he said (and the opps attacked)
during the election, is being proved correct, daily.
Libs will be up against a government and a PM that made ALL the right decisions in 2007, and 2008,
(including on Income Trusts and the GST),
resulting in a short term 2 quarter slowdown.
Canadians will, without reservation, trust PMSH on economic decisions.
Canadians will view the Liberal attacks on the gov’t and PM, in parliament, as unfounded, fabricated nonsense.