Christian Conservative Christian "Independent"

I'm an evangelical Christian, member of the CPC, but presently & unjustly exiled to wander the political wilderness.
All opinions expressed here are solely my own.

Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Easy way to make Iggy back down, again

The National Post's John Ivison made a suggestion, which if played right, could provide the way out of this most recent bluster from Iggy, the Arrogant Minded Professor.
"The real challenge with EI over the next few months will be the duration of benefits. In the last budget, the Conservatives extended entitlement by five weeks to a maximum of 50 weeks, at a cost of more than $1-billion. Yet a look at the way the unemployment rate has risen during the course of this year suggests that for many of the 800,000 Canadians on EI, their eligibility period might soon be up.

These are voters looking for someone to blame and the Liberals could have tapped into that bubbling anger. Instead, it is a good bet the Conservatives will further extend EI benefits in the coming fall fiscal update and the opportunity will have been lost
."
So, boys and girls, this is how Prime Minister Stephen "Chessmaster" Harper wins yet again... introduce a Fall Economic Update which includes another 5-week extension to EI benefits. Then, schedule the vote for the day AFTER the vote on the Liberal non-confidence motion.

The Liberals take us down, THEY get tagged for killing the extension of EI benefits. Or, the NDP sees the opening, states that they oppose the direction of this Government, but will keep the House standing so that they can support the extension of EI benefits... for which they'll get the credit for "Making Parliament Work".

Or, Door Number Three, which is the best possible outcome... IGGY BACKS DOWN.

Check... and mate?

UPDATE: Some further thoughts... upon reflection, I realized, why on earth would the NDP want to avoid an election right now? With Iggy being the farthest right leaning leader the Liberals have possibly ever had, there's a lot of left leaning Liberal votes that are pretty ripe for the poaching in places like Toronto.

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4 Comments:

  • At Wed Sep 02, 10:24:00 a.m. EDT, Blogger Bert said…

    LOVE it, CC.You ought to be PMSH campaign stratigist.

     
  • At Wed Sep 02, 12:59:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Drew Costen said…

    Hey CC. Can I make a request? Could you switch your RSS feed to include the full post? It would make life a lot easier for those of us using RSS readers.

     
  • At Wed Sep 02, 01:13:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous gimbol said…

    You seem to have hit on why Ignatieff hasn't thought this through.
    I'll be as brief as possible.

    I suspect that Iggy's plan all along was to table a N/C motion in the fall and the narrative was suppose to be framed on the backdrop of a reccession.
    This is plausible as an explaination due to Iggy's past behaviour where he makes plans based on one possible outcome not several as Harper has done consistently.
    Iggy not considering all possible outcomes has decided that this time he will be first out of the gate to not be the party that supports the governing conservatives.
    Here's the game changer in all this.
    Duceppe probably does not want an election where the Bloc seat count goes down and he also would like a majority in place so he can resign and start collecting that MP's pension. My bet is that Duceppe could stick it to Iggy by declaring an election at this time is not in the interest of Quebecers and will therefore abstain (spoken in french) rather than lend support to the 'guy that renegged on the coalition'.
    What other possible permutations could arise?
    Harper could offer Layton the three seats on that blue ribbon panel that Iggy rejected, and then claim he's keeping the promises that Iggy broke.
    And then of course there is the prospect of Harper tabling a confidence vote that is not of Iggy's choosing, yet is a measure that some lib MP's would have a hard time voting against and keeping their seat.

    The point is this.

    Without even knowing what the government has in store for the resumption of Parliament, Iggy has set the self-destruct without the insurance of a failsafe.
    He cannot climb down now without a caucus revolt.

     
  • At Fri Sep 04, 02:33:00 a.m. EDT, Blogger Silverscreen Surgeon said…

    Does this sort of politicking seem dishonest to any of you?

     

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