Question for Wiser Minds & Better Memories ...
Here's a l'il clip from the Globe website. It's actually a verbatim quote from Jefe Martin himself:
The Conservatives a month ago said they supported the budget, and they enabled the budget itself to pass. Then all of a sudden a couple of weeks ago, they went back on their word. So what we're really saying is, look, you can take the government down at any time. For heaven's sakes, pass this budget," Mr. Martin said in Newfoundland Friday morning, where he was making a day-care announcement.
Can someone point me to an actual, honest-to-goodness quote or press release or position paper or something that says the Tories withdrew their support for the budget before Jack Layton & Buzz Hargrove got to re-write it?
Thanks.
More Later.
posted by Jason Hickman @ 4:38 p.m.
7 comments
7 Comments:
They did. The Conservatives withdrew support for the budget when the opposition days were cancelled by the government on April 21st. Harper then announced he would no longer prop up a government that was taking away the opposition's democratic right to bring motions and business to the House. That's why Martin went on TV, and that's why Jack said that he would support the budget if Martin would change it.
Sometimes it's hard to keep track of where it all started, but the government did fire first with the withdrawal of opposition days.
Cheers.
Thanks. Of course, assuming that your chronology is correct (and I have no reason to say it isn't - that's why I asked in the first place!), it shows that the CPC didn't say that it was pulling support for the budget itself right away, until the Libs yanked the Oppo Days away, thereby depriving the opposition of expressing its lack of confidence in ways unrelated to the budget.
On CTV's "Question Period" today Jack Layton made a comment about how they "substantially changed" the budget. That kind of flies in the face of Paul Martin's lines...
The game's afoot. The setup for the likely fall of the government thursday. Everything going to play out around the budget, as per Liberal wishes. Truth will go out the window, more than usual.
Anyway, I've heard new news about a special candidate for Trinity-Spadina: http://rwmcbean.blogspot.com/2005/05/50-years-of-gumby.html
;)
What a crock of sheeeiite. The only reason the budget ever had a chance of passing was because of Tory support. The Tories started backing away when the Liberals tried to pull a fast one and reclassify carbon dioxide as a pollutant. Yeah, that's a real budget item isn't it. They could have had the budget passed months ago if not for playing games with it.
Given the Carbon Dioxide is a signficant greenhouse gas, I think calling it a pollutant is not unreasonable.
If that was the reason for the CPC about face, it is a sad reflection of the party.
1. Mark, thanks for the Gumby link. I think ol' Gumby would make a better Green Party candidate, given both his colour (duh) and his ability to contort at will ("Sure we'll bring in our green plan, but look, we're fiscal conservatives too - see?").
2. The Kyoto thing was an impediment to getting the budget passed, but it was taken out of the budget a while back. Even the grits recognised that it didn't belong in the budget.
3. In any event, Gumby nonsense aside, Mark makes a good point: if the govt falls on the budget, the whole "whose fault was it anyway" thing won't matter. The Libs are going to run on their NDP-friendly budget. The more interesting question (amongst others) is whether the NDP voters out there will get fished in.
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