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.

Unthinkable but true

Well, the unthinkable has occurred. Lucienne Robillard has announced that she will resign her Montreal seat on January 25, two years and two days since she won the 2006 election. She has given no reason for her abrupt decision to resign. Months ago she had already announced that she would not run again. That is why they nominated Marc Garneau in her riding. I do not know whether Robillard thought that there would not be a spring election so she had to resign now. The media treats a spring election as a near certainty. I am inclined to agree with the media on this one even though I do not like it. I am a Liberal, but not all Liberals seem to have realized that an election a few months from now is likely counterproductive for the Liberals. I do not see ourselves in any more of a position to win then than we are now. Liberals were recently talking boldly about defeating the government on their own non-confidence motion initiative in the new year. However, even if they were given the opportunity to do this, my guess is the non-confidence motion would not pass. My guess is the Bloc would vote against it so that they could pass judgment on the 2008 budget before making a decision on whether to the defeat the government. But it is the 2008 budget that makes me think a spring election likely. I see it as very difficult for this parliament to survive the 2008 budget. The Liberals do not want to keep abstaining and the Bloc already yanked their support of the government this autumn. I see it as unlikely that the Bloc would go back to supporting the government because this fall Duceppe seemed quite enthusiastic about an election despite the fact that it would cause the Bloc to lose seats. The only way an election can be avoided is if the Liberals are around 10 points or even more behind in the polls. In that case, we might see the Liberals abstaining or registering only token votes against the budget. This makes a Westmount—Ville-Marie by-election unlikely. Westmount—Ville-Marie is a target riding for the NDP, especially in a by-election. This is due to the 15% the NDP received there in the last election. However, Westmount—Ville-Marie was always a stronger Liberal riding than Outremont as far back as the Chrétien glory days. The Liberals got 45% there in the last election, compared with 35% in Outremont.