This week’s sabre-rattling between Michael Ignatieff and Stephen Harper over a summer election has all the makings of an epic battle over which leader has the biggest, um, sword.
Forget the worst economic crash in decades, the collapsing industries, the thousands of Canadians losing their jobs, their savings, their pensions, their homes.
If the political jousting between Iggy and the PM is any indication, the country is at risk of being dragged out of the pool and off to the polls in July over duelling egos.
Harper, of course, is no slouch in the larger-than-life department, having spent the past three years successfully muzzling his ministers, and generally trying to put an iron grip on everyone and everything government.
Today, the Conservative administration remains predominantly all Harper all the time.
But make no mistake, there’s a new ego-slinger in town with the potential to make “l’etat c’est moi” an understatement in both official languages.
As the Commons headed into its final week before the scheduled (and long overdue) summer break, Ignatieff held a press conference to set out the Liberal party’s four conditions for not voting the country into a mid-summer’s nightmare election.
For the first 15 minutes, Ignatieff spoke from a written text about what his party and fellow MPs were expecting from the Harper government.
About him
But as soon as Ignatieff left his prepared text and went to questions from reporters, the political situation at hand was suddenly all about him.
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Updates:
4:55 pm EDT, June 16th, 2009 — Paul Wells bats one out of the park
That whole exercise yesterday was baffling. Does Ignatieff want an election or not? Mostly I heard no election and then by the time the question and answer period was over, I wasn’t sure. Reminds me of the old story - when you talk to your pet do they understand your words or do they just hear blah, blah, blah, blah. Its all about tone. Michael Ignatieff says he wants clarity but what happened yesterday was not clear.
Clarifying the existing facts on Tory add on to the EI file would go a long way in setting the record straight for voting citizens. The Tories added the five weeks and that’s beyond what the Liberals formerly cut on their watch. So, Ignatieff riding the false claim that the Conservative gov’t is unresponsive to the plight of the recently laid off/job cuts, is plainly wrong and meant to provide the public with FALSE CHARGES against the standing gov’t.
The question for compromise/concessions revolves around the minimum requirement of working the 360 days. The PM and the opposition leader CAN WORK THIS ISSUE OUT. It’s clear, that the differences don’t merit any consideration to go to the polls prematurely. Over sixty percent of the public polls indicate reject even the talk of an election. As well, summer plans for the political elites are just about written in stone and won’t be changed. For Ignatieff, it is merely “theatre” — as he pointed out, quoting, “politics is theatre.” However, not for Conservatives. The “action plan” is in motion and infrastructure jobs in the billions are already rolling out, awaiting the stamp of gov’t approval to release monies for SPECIFIC PROJECTS. Sounds very much like the stimulus monies will be astutely monitored for value and in terms of job creation.
Already private enterprise is apparently picking up pace with 800 steel workers recalled in Hamilton. The flux is what’s disturbing — you have rehires against reports of more cuts, as in Canwest media, cutting over 500 jobs due to loss of ad revenues. They are now reporting over a billion dollar loss, while last year they had profits in the millions.
The whole question does revolve around the private sector concentrating on how they can do job retention and even hires — doing their part for economic recovery. Balancing profits against job retention. Remember, ‘no tickey, no laundry’, because any recovery involves at base citizens with living wage jobs. That’s the bottom line at the end of the day.
We need reports to focus on the retraining programs for the unempoyed and what numbers are involved now. We check on the gov’t's action plan website for info on that.
As much as I hate the thought, I think Layton should try for leader of the opposition instead of member of a coalition. The only way for the liberals to grow up and clean house is for them to electe such a low numbers of mps that they don’t have party status. As for the media bashing yesterday, perhaps they have realized that their bias is costing them ad revenue. A lot of businesses are run by conservative thinking people.
This posturing by Iggy is laughable. How much do the Libs have in the bank after the last election? Can they afford another 20 million to cement thier position as the official opposition? The only card they have is the still lingering threat of sedition. Without it Haper has free had (as he should have had) to run his government.
It almost looks to me like Ignegatiff isn’t sure he could handle the job . He’s like a damned mutt that barks and snarls and growls , until you open the gate . Then he tucks his mangy tail back where it belongs , lays down on its back exposing its soft spots and whimpers its way back under the porch where it belongs . Again and again .
Anna, did you not mean 360 hours instead of days. And someone used the phrase of get EI for 360 wks in QP today. Lots of confusion over it.
Yeah, Mary I meant 360 hours, not days. Oops. The Libs want the sheer ridiculous amt of course.
Didn’t mean to correct you Anna, but better me than a troll giving you a bad time. LOL