Last week, just before the start of the Easter long weekend, the governing Liberals tried to sneak a new provision into the budget implementation bill. The proposal classifies greenhouse gas emissions as being "toxic" under the Canadian Environmental Protection act and the effect of such a provision would result in enormous costs to industry. The provision was brought in to help the dithering Liberals meet their objectives under Kyoto.
When the provision was announced, Conservative Party Leader Stephen Harper announced that his party would vote against the term and therefore against the budget bill. Since the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois have already said that they would vote against the bill, barring unforeseen circumstances, the government will be defeated if the offending provision is not removed from the proposed legislation.
What a difference a month makes! It seems like only yesterday when the budget was tabled in the House of Commons and Harper was singing its praises (and of course, indirectly, the praises of the Liberals) and referring to the document as a "conservative budget". at that time, the leader of the Official Opposition pledged his party’s undying support to ensure that the budget document would pass. The situation then worsened when the tabled document was voted upon and Harper ordered his entire caucus to abstain from voting on it. It was a shameful act of avoiding responsibility.
The prevailing theory of why the budget should have been supported was that nobody wanted to have an election and all parties wanted this minority government to work. While the government should not be defeated merely for the sake of defeating it, this Rodney King "can’t we all just get along" theory that seemed to be held by Harper was nothing more than an abdication of his responsibility as leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. It’s nice to see Stephen Harper finally taking a principled stand, although it appears that it might be temporary.
If the opposition parties force an early election, it wouldn’t be the worst thing that can happen. The Liberal Party is probably more vulnerable now while the Gomery Inquiry is going on. It is helpful to the opposition that the Inquiry has passed the phase of the politicians taking the witness stand and denying that they knew anything. Now we are hearing evidence of not only the actual acts that took place, but evidence of who gave the directions for such transactions. It is possible that the Gomery Commission will put the blame on lower level bureaucrats and the ad execs and let the Liberals wiggle off the hook.
Bringing down the budget over Kyoto will not win any votes for Harper and the Conservatives in Quebec. But the reality is that they have little chance of making inroads in that province no matter what they do. By and large the federalists in Quebec are joined at the hip with the Liberal Party and their anger over adscam will likely result in protest votes going to the Bloc Quebecois as it did in the last election.
The only hope that the Conservatives have of ever forming the government is to make substantial gains in the province that has Stephen Harper and his party have ignored--Ontario. But Ontarians seem to have short memories. Their anger at Premier Dalton McGuinty for pledging not to raise taxes and then imposing of all things, a health tax, appears to be waning. Recent polls show the Liberals gaining back some of what they had lost. If Harper is going to try and take advantage of Ontarians anger at the Liberal Party’s sleaze and corruption, the sooner the election can be called, the better. It will be a tough sell and will take a lot of work, but it is not impossible.
Unfortunately, the monies promised to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia are also contained in the budget implementation legislation and those provinces are becoming angry and there are now signs that Harper is backtracking on his initial decision to defeat the budget over defining greenhouse gas emissions as toxic.
Flashes of opposition--it was nice while it lasted.