British peer Lord Desai was recently quoted as saying of his prime minister, “Gordon Brown was put on earth to remind people how good Tony Blair was”. The time will shortly come, if it is not already here that the same thing will be said of Liberal leader Stéphane Dion. He is well on the way to making Paul Martin, known not only in Canada but on the world stage as “Prime Minister Dithers”, look decisive.
Dion has skillfully maneuvered the once mighty Liberal Party into between a rock and a hard place. This results from the Tories’ proposed amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and how Steffi would like to spend his summer vacation – travelling the country from sea to sea to sea and selling a carbon tax to the already overtaxed masses. If the Liberals do what they now do best; refrain from voting against the government, the Harper minority government will last at least until the fall. Dion will have the entire summer to sell his beloved carbon tax.
The immigration amendments are due to come up for a vote next month. These amendments will vest more discretionary power in the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, never a good decision. The announced purpose of these changes is to attempt to clear the backlog of applications that, if left unchecked, will soon approach the million mark. As well, the Minister will be able to fast track certain applications to allow priority to be given to those immigrants who will most benefit Canada’s economy, rather than elderly parents and grandparents who are a drain on the country’s resources. The Liberals accuse the government of introducing racist legislation and some members went so far as to accuse the Conservatives of bringing the amendments forward to keep Muslims out of Canada. The cries of “racists” and “xenophobes” reverberated throughout the country.
Ethnic groups that the Liberals rely on for support are threatening to withdraw that support if the party allows these amendments to pass into law. The Liberals have already passed up one opportunity to bring the government down when they refused to support an NDP amendment to the proposed changes. If they again sit on their hands during the May vote, they risk losing the very support that they consistently rely on.
But Stéphane Dion really wants to allow the government to continue while he travels the country in order to push a carbon tax. He will undoubtedly attempt to sell his beloved tax as being revenue neutral but we’ve heard that all before. The carbon tax will apply, among other things, to gasoline. The price of gasoline has recently jumped to over $1.20 a litre. Just last week, Dion released his pet gasoline watchdog Dan McTeague, who always seems to surface when gas prices rise. McTeague accused the oil companies of price gouging. Even if this is true, you would think that the Liberals would praise them for this gouging. After all, the higher the price, the less demand. Higher prices will result in less gasoline being used which in turn will mean less greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere. But no, higher gasoline prices are only beneficial when the government increases the price in the form of higher federal taxes.
The reality is that most Canadians want to save the environment as long as they don’t have to personally pay for it. Steffi is going to find out that higher taxes, either on consumers or on producers who will pass these higher taxes onto consumers, will be a hard sell. And if Dion keeps the government afloat by refusing to bring it down over immigration, he will have lost much of his party’s ethnic vote while championing higher taxes.
Whatever way it goes, the next few months will make for interesting times.
