Good job Michael Ignatieff

Needless to say I am thankful that the election threat has been averted but I still want to take issue with past Conservative characterizations of the previous Liberal proposal to reform Employment Insurance. Tories classified the Liberal suggestion as a “socialist scheme” but that is something I would take issue with. I know of a previous Conservative government who enriched Unemployment Insurance – the government of John Diefenbaker who extended unemployment insurance benefits due to rising unemployment around 1958. The book I have says the Diefenbaker government extended unemployment insurance benefits by 6 weeks, which is longer than the , which is longer than the 5 week extension the current Tories brought forward. My point is that Tories have enriched Employment Insurance before and could do so again and the fact that Tories have enriched unemployment insurance shows that EI enrichment is not a socialist scheme. Sure Diefenbaker was largely a Red Tory. But even Harper’s blue Toryism doesn’t prevent him from supporting farm subsidies due to his farmer base of support still desiring farm subsidies. The Conservatives have actually offered some enrichment of farm subsidies so why is enriching Employment Insurance a “socialist scheme”? And in regards to the EI deal that has been reached by Ignatieff and Harper, I disagree with the negative characterizations of it that I’m seeing in the media, especially from the National Post. National Post columnists in particular are painting Ignatieff in a very negative light with regard to this deal with Harper on EI. They say he caved in from the conditions he set on Monday morning. Nothing could be farther from the truth. At his Monday morning press conference Ignatieff made it clear that his conditions for supporting the government were not rigid demands. He said at that Monday morning press conference that he was flexible and reasonable. He demanded answers from the government on how it would get out of deficit, how it would handle the isotope crisis, how much infrastructure money has actually been spent, and what plans the government has to reform Employment Insurance. Contrary to what is implied in the negative columns about Ignatieff, Ignatieff never made it a condition that Employment Insurance reform be passed into law this week. He only asked what the governments plans to reform EI were. Contrary to what is said in the negative columns about Ignatieff, Ignatieff got all 4 of his conditions met. The government released more information about how it planned to get out of deficit. Ignatieff may also have been given more information about this in his private meetings with Harper. The government agreed to give written information about what it planned to do about the isotope crisis. That is the second condition met. Harper told Ignatieff his plans for Employment Insurance reform, which was his plan to give the self-employed access to EI. Ignatieff and Harper agreed to strike a blue-ribbon panel to study both how to implement access to EI for the self-employed and how to make other improvements to EI. The combination of those things is Ignatieff’s third condition being met. The only condition that is unclear whether it has been met is the condition that the government make it clearer how much infrastructure money has actually been spent. But I think it likely that Harper gave Ignatieff information on this during their meetings which would mean that all four conditions were met and Ignatieff did NOT back down as indicated in the many negative columns written about Ignatieff.