Choice words for Dion... OUCH!

The National Post's Don Martin has some choice words for Dion today... "Only fear driven by unprincipled self-preservation will keep the Liberals from triggering Canada’s third election inside of five years now as the Conservatives drive a new uncompromising agenda forward." ... "The inconvenient truth behind his Throne Speech predicament is that Mr. Dion must either vote to save the planet or save his political a**. Half measures, desperate hair-splitting and voting shenanigans by the Liberals only justify public cynicism about his party as a band of quivering opportunists interested in keeping their MP paycheques."

Dion's choice: Save the planet, or save his political a**
Don Martin, National Post
Published: Tuesday, October 16, 2007

OTTAWA -- Only fear, driven by unprincipled self-preservation, will keep the Liberals from triggering Canada's third election inside of five years now as the Conservatives drive a new uncompromising agenda forward.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper baited an election hook Tuesday to reel the floundering Liberals into a campaign they seem doomed to lose badly as their organizational meltdown continues.

It's only one paragraph in a 16-page Speech from the Throne full of the usual rah-rah rhetoric and resurrected tax cut and crime-fighting promises, but one key point forces Liberal leader Stephane Dion into a policy box shaped like a credibility coffin.

Kyoto -- the international greenhouse gas reduction treaty, not Mr. Dion's gas-generating pet dog -- is dead in Canada. Finally.

"Canada's emissions cannot be brought to the level required under the Kyoto Protocol within the compliance period, which begins on January 1, 2008, just 77 days from now," Mr. Harper wrote.

That acknowledgment makes us the first country in the world to engage a de facto retreat from ratified treaty obligations to reduce greenhouse gases below 1990 levels.

To spare his ailing party from a campaign disaster that would be marked by leadership disarray and party disorganization, the former environment minister now has to support the effective dismantling of a signature Liberal government accomplishment.

Yes, yes, there's the plan to float a symbolic opposition, giving just enough Liberal MPs a voting day off to ensure they don't push the government into an election.

But with the New Democrats testosteroned into the deluded belief they would be the big winner of any fall election, and the Bloc Quebecois believing they have to fight now or face annihilation in Quebec, the dirty job of propping up the government belongs exclusively to the Liberals.

The inconvenient truth behind his Throne Speech predicament is that Mr. Dion must either vote to save the planet or save his political ass. Half measures, desperate hair-splitting and voting shenanigans by the Liberals only justify public cynicism about his party as a band of quivering opportunists interested in keeping their MP paycheques.

Lest we forget, Kyoto still enjoys sacred cow status in public opinion and it was the Liberals whose MP successfully sponsored a bill last spring forcing the government to draft a plan to meet the Kyoto targets.

To accept the Speech from the Throne as an approved government agenda is to agree one of the party's few policy successes is an unattainable farce. It would deliver a hard, if not fatal, hit on the credibility of a leader whose claim to political integrity and personal honesty are his greatest, if not only, strengths.

Let's assume Mr. Dion can somehow fudge the Throne Speech vote and argue it was necessary to prevent Canadians from an unwanted election. There are plenty of other election tripwires in the speech.

The anti-terrorism measures vilified by the Liberals will be brought back.

A package of justice measures under the umbrella of a Tackling Violent Crime bill includes moves the Liberals argued strongly against. And there was barely a mention of Liberal social justice issues, child care or health care.

The Liberals cannot become a rollover Opposition for long. At most they have two surrender-monkey acts to perform to keep the government in business before they become a Liberal laughingstock.

If they continue to cave to Mr. Harper's will, it means the Prime Minister is entering a period of considerable agenda-imposing influence.

With the economy roaring, the dollar soaring and favourable polling numbers firming up in majority territory, the Prime Minister will undoubtedly remain hawkish about imposing his minority will on a majority opposition.

And if he gets a free hand to govern in such commanding style, well, the longer he plays a real prime minister the more difficult it is to imagine a pretender like Dion in the job.

As a student of political history, Mr. Harper knows there's never been an election triggered by these vague Throne Speech mission statements. And the four minority governments that have fallen by their own hand have posted an unenviable record of just one victory versus three defeats.

But none of those minority governments were in such robust ascendancy while facing such a hapless opponent in the middle of a prolonged period of bad and worse news.

If there's an election sooner, at least the Liberals can argue they took a principled stand on key issues against a prime minister who was trying to bully his agenda through Parliament.

If they force an election later, after regular bouts of white-flagged capitulation, people will see them as timid and perhaps overcome their fears of the Conservatives as majority rulers.