Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said Thursday he will take one more day to review the Conservatives’ second economic progress report before deciding on whether to try to force an election.
Ignatieff spoke shortly after Prime Minister Stephen Harper delivered the report Thursday in Cambridge, Ont., at a town hall-style event moderated by Senator Mike Duffy. In exchange for supporting the Conservative budget in January, the Liberals demanded quarterly reports on the state of the economy and on how federal stimulus funds were being spent.
“I am responsible to millions of Canadians,” Ignatieff told reporters in Montreal.
“What they expect of me is to do my job properly and I’m trying to do it properly. So I’m going to look at the report tonight if I get a minute and tomorrow, and then we’ll make a decision,” he said after giving a speech to Quebec business leaders.
“And we’re not going to keep people hanging around. We’ll make a decision and it will be clear: up or down.”
The Liberals will have to table a no-confidence motion if they wish to force a summer election.
[More]
Updates:
6:55 pm EDT, June 11th, 2009 — Don Martin says no summer election so it must be true, right?
‘ I am responsible for millions of Americans, if I don’t think I can win an election in Canada, Hahvahd is calling me back.
‘ I’ll look at the report tonight and call the university’.
I am not hanging around if I can’t have the P.M.’s chair.
My take on it anyways. heh
Someone please take pity on Michael Ignatieff and give the man a daisy. He needs to make and important decision – Should I vote yea or Should I vote nay. Daisies beware you may become an endangered species. He needs to ask the question – “Do Canadians love me enough to make me PM or Do Canadians not love me enough to make me PM?”. This is too funny for words, my toddlers were better decision makers – they knew in real time if they would fight for an issue or not.
So what is he gonna do??He has no power to call an election..
Go for it Iggy,just what we need another f***in election.The arrogant prefect shaking those manly fists best consider that by disrupting BBQ season someone is gonna get punished this time around.
all scenarios look bad for the Iggster.
mid island mike
I had a really nasty thought last night. I was thinking about Lisa and that reactor file which the opposition is making such a big noise about.
Rather than have the media draw the information out in bits and pieces over many months through access to information requests why not downgrade the security level on all files associated with it to “zero” and release it to the media as one big chunk?
That should keep them busy for awhile.
After all, Ralph Goodale did it so why should Harper care?
I’m sort of sick of politics right now because so much of it is just playing games to get or hold power and so little of it is about trying to figure out what is good policy and getting things done or standing out of the way of other people getting things done!
I guess it’s unrealistic to expect much more from human nature anytime soon …..
An election now could clear the air or cause another crisis if the results just turn out the same, or close to the same, as the last two elections: If the Conservative get another minority we might just get ” COALITION II ” and repeat the mess we where in late 2008. If the Liberals get a minority then it’s de-facto government of the left if Ignatieff wants or needs the support of the Block and NDP or if he turns out more to the Right than they like we get more threats of non confidence votes or non-support by the Block or NDP.
If by some miracle the Liberals get a majority government the breakfast call at the pig trough is going to be ringing as the ” Old Gang ” that brought us the ADSCAM and other boondoggles will be back in power without having to actually bite the bullet and rebuild the Liberal Party and get back to a decent party of the centre that even a Conservative could vote for if they had policies alternatives better than a sitting Conservative party ! Canada would be healthier with two credible parties of centre-right versus centre-left.
Short term I would rather just forget about politics for at least the Summer and even better yet a year LOL. Would much rather enjoy the Summer than be biting my finger nails watching polls go up and down for 6 weeks during an election campaign !
Agree Jean. That’s what I feel like doing too, forget about it. Politics and the media are 2 peas in a pod…mindless, useless.
I see the same poltical/media mindlessness while here in Europe. Until some kind of consensus gathers that we voters are better able to manage ourselves than politicians taking our money and spending it on their bribes for re-election, then Canada is headed toward the kind of voter apathy seen here in the EU ..43% and many of those votes cast for extremism … the middle is disengaged.
What we need is very simple: smaller government and more healthy competition for services.
Everyone can go back to sleep. He’ll be awhile.
While Iggy is deciding, breaking news out of Iran, not confirmed but it seems like
Iran has elected a NEW president and dinnerjacket is out. (Fox)
Yes the Iranians ” may . have elected a new President but the news I heard on radio was that they are declaring President the guy I can’t spell or pronounce without tripping over my tongue in other words the sitting nutcase as the winner ! ( Maybe not official yet but they are trying ! ).
The problem is that the ” nutcase ” has many violence prone ” nutty ” friends who are in charge of counting the ballots.
For the sake of the World and the Iranian people I hope I’m wrong and the real winner becomes the President, not Mr. Dinnerjacket. LOL !