When Michael Ignatieff was lured back into
Canadian politics, he was hailed as the new Pierre Trudeau and many
were hoping that, finally, the new leader would give Canadians at
least one reason to vote for the Liberals again. After four years in
Canada, two Conservative minority governments, and an economic
crisis of gigantic proportions, Ignatieff has steadfastly refused to
give Canadians that one reason why they should support him, aside
from the childish argument that the other guys are bad.
I've
already said that it was a mistake for Prime Minister Stephen Harper
to shut down Parliament for more than a month, because the only
political party that needed some time out in Ottawa was the Liberal
Party.
Still,
instead of taking this opportunity to fill the leadership,
credibility, and policy vacuum, the new leadership of the Liberal
Party has summoned its MPs to Ottawa to try to convince Canadians
that they can work, even if the House is closed and after failing to
prove that they can do something useful when the House is open.
The
Liberals' reaction is just farcical.
They
are accusing the government of jeopardizing our democracy, but are
doing nothing to defeat the government.
They
want to be in government, but don't want an election.
They
don't like the Conservative economic plan but, after being in this
economic crisis for more than a year, still don't have an
alternative plan.
Ignatieff
doesn't like the deficit, but when he is asked what to do to
eliminate it, he says that, "It's up to them (meaning the
government) to answer to this question, not to me."
Of
course, it is up to the government to deal with this, and I hope
Harper will tell us sooner rather than later how he intends to
proceed. But, quite frankly, I don't expect a party that hasn't been
able to help its candidates from the previous leadership campaign
get rid of their financial debts, to take care of the debt of the
entire country.
If
Ignatieff is not ready to answer questions about the economic
crisis, can he explain what he is doing in Ottawa? Can he tell us
why he wants Parliament open if he cannot present an alternative
economic plan when the only thing he fears more than this government
is the prospect of going to the polls to replace it?
Then
there's the Afghanistan issue. Is that the ballot question that
Ignatieff believes will make him the next Prime Minister?
The
Liberal government of Jean Chrétien
takes the credit for not having sent our troops to Iraq, but not the
blame for sending them to Afghanistan. Furthermore, do we really
want to know who sent our troops to the most dangerous area of this
war-torn country? In Chrétien's
book, My Years as Prime Minister, he writes that because "my
successor [Paul Martin] took too long to make up his mind about
whether Canada should extend our term with ISAF, our soldiers were
moved out of Kabul and sent south again to battle the Taliban in the
killing fields around Kandahar."
Was
that because they didn't know what was going on in Afghanistan, or
was it just plain incompetence?
Lately
they also voted for two extensions of our mission up to February of
next year, along with the Conservatives. And they want us to believe
that their position in Afghanistan is different from the
government's because Harper favours torture and Ignatieff doesn't?
Again,
I don't agree with Harper's decision to prorogue and I hope that he
will change his mind. Proroguing may not have been a mistake, but
Canadians don't agree with the PM. Changing your mind to respect the
views of the voters is not a sign of weakness but leadership,
because he shows that he listens to Canadians.
A
minority government is a lame duck government. But an opposition
that cannot defeat a minority government is a lame duck opposition.
And, the only thing worse than a government that doesn't have the
trust of the majority of its citizens, is when the citizens trust
the opposition much less than the government
itself.
