Liberals In A Big Hole

And they just keep digging. The latest spin from Liberal HQ is they would not support an NDP motion to strip the Immigration bill from the budget because:

"We want at least one and maybe two Standing Committees to go to work on Bill C-50. We need the committees to expose the details of how wrong-headed and arbitrary the Conservative plan is. And we need the committees to provide affected Canadians with a forum to say what they think."

In English this means. "We are scared to death of an election right now, so we are hoping that if we vote with the government and then filibuster our brains out in committee, this puppy will die on the order paper when either we a)grow a backbone, or b) October 2009 turns up and saves us." I am not sure how they think they can keep the government from having a budget for a year and a half, but hey, I am not a Liberal. At some point in the near future Liberals will have to fish or cut bait. The eternal limbo dance will have to end.

Oh and I love this paragraph:

The NDP amendment now before the House at Second Reading would pre-empt any and all debate and Parliamentary study of these radical changes. Liberals will vote to send Bill C-50 to the Standing Committee on Finance for detailed study. The Official Opposition will also seek authority for the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration to examine the immigration component of Bill C-50

I call this, the "Gosh, we hope the people of Canada are stupid" paragraph. Yes, the NDP motion would have "pre-empted" parliamentary debate on the bill, because it would have defeated the government. It was, in essence, a vote of non-confidence in the government. The motion reads:

“this House declines to give second reading to Bill C-50, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 26, 2008 and to enact provisions to preserve the fiscal plan set out in that budget, since the principles of the Bill relating to immigration fail to recognize that all immigration applicants should be treated fairly and transparently, and also fail to recognize that family reunification builds economically vibrant, inclusive and healthy communities and therefore should be an essential priority in all immigration matters”.

If the Liberals had supported this motion, we would now be in an election. So rather than an act of courage, this is just another example of Liberals reaching for a carton of Depends. I will now stand back and watch as "progressives" who vote Liberal, screw themselves into the ground trying to pretend that the Liberals were right to do this and the NDP was somehow supporting the government by trying to bring it down.

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