Ignatieff said that he would allow Newfoundland MPs to break ranks and vote against the federal budget because the Harper budget made significant “unilateral and ‘radical’ cuts to federal transfers to the province,” (Yahoo news, CBC News). The budget will cut $1.6 billion in federal transfer payments to Newfoundland.
Ignatieff has displayed the continuing weakness of the Liberal party and of his leadership. Ignatieff has the opportunity to stand up to Harper and force him to make significant changes to the budget or provoke an election. Instead he has only demanded a ‘review’ of economic stimulus activities as the only requirement for his support of the Harper budget. Ignatieff sees the toll the budget will have on Newfoundlanders, but chooses not to do anything about it. Allowing NF Liberal MPs to vote against the budget does not accomplish anything.
According to CBC News “Ignatieff said he met with Harper on Monday and asked him to “pause” the cut until they can come up with a reasonable solution. He said the prime minister said no.” Instead of forcing Harper to make the changes, he has accepted Harper’s position and ran back to the party with his tail between his legs.
Why are the Liberals so scared of triggering an election? With Dion out of office they had a great opportunity to improve their position in parliament. There could be a number of reasons:
(1) The Liberal party is in financial ruin and is ill prepared for another election;
(2) The Liberals are afraid to be labelled as the party that caused another election when Canadians ‘don’t want another election’ according to some polls.
(3) The Liberals see that there will be major defecits in the near future and no clear way out. Instead of walking into leading a country while it falls into economic ruin, Ignatieff would rather that Harper bear the brunt of the mess. Perhaps Ignatieff is planning to bring down the government during one of his proposed budgetary ‘reviews’ and step into the PM position just before the economy turns positive again.
I would imagine that all three of these factors were at work in Ignatieff’s mind when he decided to simply allow NL MPs to vote against the budget rather than taking a substantial position. Therefore is this a good move? For Ignatieff…. maybe. For Canadians- definitely not.
