Real-world signs don't point to fall vote (Canadian federal parliament)

National Post ^ | 2009-09-02 | John Ivison

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No sooner had Michael Ignatieff told his caucus in Sudbury, Ont., that the Liberal party will no longer support Stephen Harper’s Conservatives than headlines started to pop up saying that the Liberal leader is set to topple the government.

Let’s all take a deep breath here, people. There are 308 seats in Parliament and the Liberals hold only 77 of them. To bring down the government they need the support of both the Bloc Québécois and the NDP.

The last Canwest poll by Ipsos Reid had the Dippers at 14% support, down from 18% at the last election, when they won 37 seats. In the interim, the party has been drained of cash and energy by provincial elections in British Columbia and Nova Scotia that have hurt its ability to fight a fully funded national campaign.

The bottom line is turkeys don’t vote for Christmas, so don’t expect NDP leader Jack Layton to be lining up to support a Liberal vote of non-confidence any time soon.

This is probably just as well for Mr. Ignatieff, based on Tuesday’s lofty speech that sounded remarkably out of step with the pragmatic spirit of the times.

“We can do better,” the Liberal leader said repeatedly, without offering any clues to justify his Obama-like optimism.

Mr. Ignatieff painted a bleak picture of an incompetent government, led by a Prime Minister so inept he couldn’t operate a spoon.

Unemployment is touching 20-year record levels; deficits are growing with no credible plan to balance the books; the employment insurance regime is unfair to many Canadians; infrastructure money is failing to flow; and, health care is in crisis because of the Conservative government’s mishandling of the isotope issue.

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Pleae read the whole of the linked article before commenting.

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From the article:

Yet most polling evidence suggests most Canadians still believe the unloved Harper government is doing a reasonable job in the circumstances and should be allowed to continue governing. Far fewer think Mr. Ignatieff would do better, according to an Ipsos poll last June — a time when Liberal polling numbers were higher than they are now. To alter that perception, Mr. Ignatieff will have to do more than purloin Mr. Obama’s campaign slogan. All we heard yesterday was that the Liberal party is the party of vision; the party capable of showing real leadership in a changing world; the party of really big ideas to take Canada toward its 150th birthday, such as Tuesday's suggestion that we should locate a G8 secretariat here to provide guidelines for international financial regulations. Is Mr. Ignatieff serious about sending his candidates on to doorsteps to talk about G8 secretariats and national celebrations eight years from now, at a time when many people are more concerned about making it through to next week? If so, it suggests he is so high in his ivory tower, he’s 500 feet above the real issues.

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Ignatieff is the intellectual, the Harvard professor who is an academic political theoretician.

Harper is the pragmatic economist who turns the handle the way it goes.

Harper is the better parliamentarian.

And Layton is not stupid. He knows that his party is not going to govern or even be the official opposition. He knows that his party has to maintain a credible percentage of the electorate and a credible number of seats in the house in order to maintain any third party influence. He is not going to sacrifice his party's standing in a minority House on the alter of liberalism.

[CanaGuy]

By spring, the Obama bubble will have completely burst. Currently, he's resorted to actually making speeches to school kids, that's how far gone HE is. I mean, how sad is that?

Obama's ugly demise will take the (CDN) Liberals, NDP and Greens down with him. If I were Harper....I'd wait for the implosion south of the border, wait two months, then call the election. Yep. A plan so cunning you could pin a tail on it and call it a weasel!

[BlueLancer]

"A plan so cunning you could pin a tail on it and call it a weasel!"

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