Vote Liberal - if you want a Harper majority!

As I walked around the nation's capital today, I couldn't help but notice a great story and accompanying graphic on the front page of the Ottawa Citizen.




The article, by Glen McGregor (who's not only a great journalist but was really nice to this kid when I was Ottawa bureau chief for CUP), does a great job of highlighting the Liberal record - which clearly shows that they aren't standing up to Harper and, as such, are effectively giving him a majority.

As the article tells us:

"The Official Opposition supported the government on extending the Canadian mission in Afghanistan, motions on its centrepiece crime bill, and on other parliamentary arcana, such as a bill regarding the settlement of international investment disputes … The voting records support the growing contention that the Liberals are not truly functioning as an official Opposition as they seek to avoid running an election behind struggling leader Stéphane Dion.”

In the last election, the Liberals desperately asked Canadians to forget their record of failed promises, forget that inconvenient money laundering scam in Quebec and vote Liberal so they could "stop Harper's hidden agenda".

And what did those Liberal MPs go to Ottawa and do? Well, first they were distracted by organizing for their leadership race. And then once Dion got in and, once it became clear he'd wasn't going to have an office in Langevin Block anytime soon, they're now giving Harper a de facto majority so they can avoid facing the voters.

So I would think voters will be asking themselves, why vote Liberal?

Because it's now clear that, after the next election, your Liberal MP will be going back to Ottawa to organize for the next leadership race and stay in their seats when it comes time to stand up for the things they said they would fight for on the campaign trail.

Thankfully Canadians can vote for another party with a record of standing up for their beliefs - and against the Harper agenda.

"“Why vote for the Liberal party when the Liberal party won't stand up and vote for you?”

It's not often I agree with Peter Van Loan, but I think this quote should be in the mind of all progressive voters when they're getting ready to cast their votes in the next election.

Despite staking his political reputation on the environment, Liberal leader Stephane Dion ordered his party to stay away from the House tonight on a vote on a opposition motion of non-confidence in the Harper government on their inaction on reducing greenhouse gases.

Thankfully, voters concerned about the environment have another party in parliament who are willing to take action on climate change.

Source: Globe and Mail.

Should we working for democracy this morning, but saw something in my morning perusal of Macleans online (which is really great, btw), I saw this story about the NDPs budget demands and my blood started to boil a little bit.

Good to see Jack getting out and setting parameters for NDP support for the budget. And I guess it's smart politics to make a solid pitch to win Saskatchewan seats, after all they are eminently winnable. But calling for the exclusion of resource revenues from the equalization is bad policy and not in line with NDP values.

Why? Because this would royally screw my beloved home province and is not in the spirit of the constitution.

Subsection 36 (2) of the Constitution states that "Parliament and the government of Canada are committed to the principle of making Equalization payments to ensure that provincial governments have sufficient revenues to provide reasonably comparable levels of public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation."

I fail to see how excluding oil and gas revenues, which as Canada inevitably becomes an energy superpower will definitely become and bigger component of provincial budgets, from the equalization formula helps equalize provincial services.

In the interests of fairness, the NDP should be calling for nothing less than a 10-province standard that includes all provincial revenues. Anything else, in an era of rising energy prices, is unfair. If the goal of equalization is to allow provinces to provide equal services at comparable taxation levels, then you can't exclude the huge pile of petro-dollars in their coffers from the calculation. To do so will prevent provinces with no oil or gas, like poor little PEI, from having the same fiscal capacity as other provinces.

The biggest irony is that PEI might have the most forward looking energy and environmental policies of any provincial government. Despite an ongoing fiscal crunch, PEI has made investment in wind power a priority and are set to be leaders in this industry, that I thought Jack Layton supported.

The NDP is no more likely to win seats in PEI than they are in the Saguenay or Missisauga or Calgary, but that doesn't mean they should not get behind a fair equalization system that works for all Canadians.