Angry in the Great White North tells us that the Conservatives emerged from their caucus meeting with the news they'll support the budget, but not the NDP budget amendment.
Why bother running against the Liberals in the next election at all. They can just change their name to : Liberal, but not those Liberals .
This might be an attempt to save the seats of Hearn and Doyle, but the party has lost a lot of credibility by this cynical move.
Harper has been running around the nation, promising to keep up with Martin on every deal he's signed, every cent he's spent. Now, Conservatives are going to support the same budget on which they abstained in the first place.
If you have principles, you don't back down. You don't change your vote because you don't have the numbers. Either it's a good budget or a bad one. Either it's a corrupt regime unworthy to be propped up, or it's a government with authority.
It's not good enough to say they don't like what the Liberals have done and are doing. They'd be better to lose to vote in the House Thursday, than to allow their resolve to crumble in the face of Stronach's departure. There's dignity in principled loss. Instead, they plan to defect en masse.
Rather than define themselves, they have allowed the Liberals to define them. They lurch more and more to the left in hopes of becoming popular, but they've turned their backs on their values and now stand for nothing. They are Liberals, wearing blue. They are 'wannabes' to those who 'are', and they are disloyal to those who put them in office.
What happened today was the beginning of the dissolution of the Conservative Party. They must think agreeing to vote with the budget will be good PR. Whatever this strategy was intended convey, in my opinion it will end by making Canada more of a one-party state than anything the Liberals ever did. You might never form a government in Canada with right-wing policies, but at least you could call them to account. At least you could be the voice of all of us who are not liberals. At least history would reflect that someone tried to prevent the downfall of this country.
Belinda Stronach didn't betray conservatives -- we knew she was never really there in the first place. But this news says the whole party has turned its back on its core support.
If they vote for budget, the Conservatives will have responded to today's humilation by conceding that Belinda Stronach was right.
Its no wonder people sit out elections.
4 comments:
Please remember that there are two budget bills before Parliament.
The first one--the one that the Tories plan to support--is the original budget with funding for the Atlantic Accord. The Tories had initially planned to support this bill before the Gomery brouhaha and the Opposition Day fiasco, so there's no inconsistency.
The second one -- the ones the Tories and Bloc will vote against -- amends the budget to remove some corporate tax cuts and addresses some other spending concerns of the NDP. This bill came about after the Gomery explosion.
Because the second bill contains substantial amendments to the first, it is deemed a money bill and therefore is agreed by everyone to be a vote of confidence.
Voting for the first bill shows the Tories can be reasonable. Since the second bill is the result of Liberal tomfoolery, killing it shows the Tories won't tolerate the Liberal attitude towards power.
Glad you found an bit of an upside on this, but . . .
When I went to their website, the statement they had about the original budget was that while there were things in it they agreed with, they would not support the budget -- they would simply not defeat it. They would allow it to pass, but because they considered it flawed, they would abstain.
When the Liberals have accused them of flip-flopping, the answer has always been that they never supported the budget -- just that prior to opposition days being removed, they had no plans to defeat it.
They abstained in the first vote didn't they? That means they didn't support it.
I see your point, but at the same time, it looks like selling out.
They were put between a rock and a hard place, so their options are limited. I suppose they are trying to salvage something from this mess, but another problem with the Conservatives is they jump the gun.
They didn't need to announce their intentions last night. They could have mulled it over and if they felt the need to announce anything at all, they could have done it today. Why do they always tip their hand?
Anyway, lets hope you're right and this is not as ominous as I feel it is right now.
I think yesterday was just so overwhelming, that an announcement like supporting the budget on top of it just made me see red.
Cheers.
Canadi-anna,
I suspect the best route for the CPC to take is to rename itself. The Freedom Party. If you want a real contrast with the freedom-hating Libranos, start there.
(You are hereby free to run with this idea; I have a few other things to deal with that I want to get out before I get to that.)
As always, cheers in return.
Yeah I've been thinking the same thing. Maybe the Freedom Party is the way to go. Either that or apply for refugee status in the US & move to Texas
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