Posted on 04/29/2005 7:18:39 PM PDT by NorthOf45
A great stew of opportunism and desperation
By Rex Murphy
Apr. 28 2005
This is a great country and a great government.
Name another democracy that's had three budgets in less than a week.
As of Sunday, Canada was still operating on the Ralph Goodale budget. "The principles of the budget are the principles of the budget, and we stand firmly by those principles." That was Mr. Goodale seven days ago.
The word "firmly" has either been mugged or kidnapped since then, and "principles" has fled the dictionary all together.
By Sunday night, the half hour meeting between the prime minister and the NDP leader at the Royal York Hotel and some intercession by CAW leader Buzz Hargrove, we had the Jack Layton budget. The Layton budget had different principles from the Goodale budget, a new $4.5 billion and a cancellation of tax cuts for big corporations.
This budget by my reckoning lasted about 18 to 36 hours because yesterday Paul Martin and Ralph Goodale indicated the corporate tax cuts were back. Evidently the word "deal" for this crowd is the lost twin of the word "principle." As I'm reading this, another budget may be in the works.
There could be a Carolyn Parrish budget or a Chuck Cadman budget before the week is out.
This is not a Parliament. It's a bad episode of "24."
So where are we? Well, if Mr. Layton can stomach the corporate tax cuts being placed back in so soon after he insisted they be taken out, he'll support whatever version of the budget eventually makes it to the Commons.
I don't know why he should. Since taking them out was at the top of his list for supporting them in the first place. Mr. Harper has declared war on the whole procedure, saying Mr. Martin has cut a deal with the devil, which is a bit harsh on Mr. Layton or unduly kind to Lucifer.
The entire business is a great stew of opportunism and desperation, as undignified and it is useless.
The Gomery Commission has spiked the possibility of anything of consequence, like a budget, receiving rational or purposeful consideration. It and the dynamics of a rudderless and enfeebled minority government have emptied parliament of everything, save naked, partisan war and party manoeuvring trying vainly to masquerade as righteousness.
Ottawa today is all politics and no government, all partisanship and no purpose. The current spectacle is dissolving respect for parliaments and politics and going some way to dissolving respect for the country both are supposed to serve. Democracy is not a series of one-day deals cut for a spike in the polls or an evening newscast. Mr. Martin can short circuit all of this. His government is now nothing more than improvisation and an hourly calculation. He should resign. We should vote, and Gomery must continue.
For The National, I'm Rex Murphy.
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