Day 28 - Money, money, money and coalitions

Budget Day + 1 and the political intrigue continues.  It was an interesting play by Ignatief, but a good one.  Started by saying how horrible the budget was, but then saying it did have some redeeming features - finally saying that he didn't want to get rid of the government, just make sure it delivered on the good parts.  The Conservatives are on probation - even tried to deliver a sound bit.  I especially liked his response to the first question at his press conference - a reporter asked Ignatief if he cleared his proposals with the Conservatives and he responded that he didn't need to ask their permission to do anything, but if they didn't agree he would have to bring the government down.  That's not a direct quote, it's paraphrasing, so don't go nuts.  You get the idea though - I almost wonder if he planted the question.  Later in the day the Conservatives gave a statement saying they would amend the budget as per the Liberal suggestion, no doubt after breathing several sighs of relief into their oxygen masks.

The other members of the coalition were very interesting as well.  Gilles Duceppe was very blase - he acted as though the coalition had played out the way he expected.  Jack Layton was the most amusing - acting all hurt, like someone stood up on a date or something.  He then went on to be bitter about how he wasn't going to have the power no more... er, vowing vengeance on the Liberals... er, decry the break-up of the coalition because the Conservatives were still bad.  He tried to make it amusing, but it just came across like a yapping dog to me.  He had a slim chance to share in power, but it wasn't going to happen.

Yesterday I suggested that the Liberals wouldn't want to have power now because any badness from the economy would look their fault.  Today I heard another good reason - a reporter on the CBC (I am aware that I use that phrase often, but deal - I listen to the CBC) pointed out that if the coalition took power, Ignatief would be the unelected prime minister, not even elected by his own party, at the head of a coalition that many Canadians feel is undemocratic.  The only way it could be worse is if somehow George W. Bush became the leader of the coalition.  Actually that may have been better for the coalition because the attack ads would have such an embarrassment of rich targets they'd be incoherent.  It matters not - the coalition is dead just like Gilles Duceppe proclaimed.  Ignatief stated it, and some pundits as well, that the coalition served its purpose - to reign in the Conservatives and get them to play nicer with the other parties.  Ignatief holds the balance of power - it's basically his decision to prompt an election.  The coalition allowed him to begin from a strong point, instead of being tested like Dion was when he first came to parliament.  Dion and Ignatief are in similar positions at the beginning of their leadership tenure - their party wasn't really ready to fight an election.  Harper forced Dion to choose right away, and he opted for the wait-and-see or gather-our-strength position.  The longer he put off an election, the weaker he seemed.  Ignatief inherits pretty much the same party as Dion, but because of the coalition, his first actions are decisive and provocative to the Conservatives.  So now Ignatief can do the same thing as Dion, but he comes away looking like a consensus builder instead of a weak leader.  I'll leave it to history to decide if these differences are due to the skills of the people involved or the situation.

I hope this leads to decent balance in the minority situation and the parties can cooperate to try and get the country out of this recession, er economic downturn.