A lot of my Lib friends are quite shaken. Whole different story when speculation hits the realm of possibility, but they should stay true to their words of last week. Anyone but harper.
NDP as a whole may not have federal experience running things, but they have some good, experienced people who can lead. Libs will work with them. And it will be funny as hell if stevo not only goes down as first PM to be ousted on contempt, but losing to the NDP federally...nice.
If NDP forms the official opposition, still no need to panic, my Liberal friends. Gives the Libs a chance to work on their own party, get a new leader, face some hard truths and decide what they have to offer Canadians.
Layton will be faced with harper's budget and his unwillingness to work with others, so we will see if he will prop up the CONs like the Liberals did, just to avoid dissolving Parliament and bide his time, or if he'll meet with the Libs and go to the GG to examine options.
We'll get through it, we'll all learn something about the Libs and the NDP as they face different dynamics, and hopefully more of us can get past the gut partisanship that still drives the best of us at some fundamental level.
The Libs and NDP today aren't the ones our parents knew any more than the CONs are. It's a different country, different issues, different priorities. Time for change, and I don't mean changing parties. Time for serious reform within the parties and in how we do politics.
Monday Afternoon Links
9 hours ago
4 comments:
A thoughtful, well-reasoned post. I can't really argue with any of the sentiments you're expressing. Once some Liberals - not all, just some - manage to get past their entitlement tantrums, perhaps there's reason to hope they and the NDP can work collaboratively.
Not getting too excited, though. The corporate media may yet scare people away from the Evul Soshalists.
The corporate media's campaign seems to be having the desired effect among too many from what I gleaned while in Ottawa for a few days.
We need more Danny Williams shedding a light on how dangerous a Harper majority will be for most Canadians.
Much as I find Jack Layton an opportunistic career politician, he is not out to destroy our democracy. So I could deal with an NDP minority, although not happily.
I would disagree with the notion that the Liberals need a new leader. Ignatieff has actually run a good campaign and Canadians are beginning to know him. The fact is, he was subjected to massive smears by the Cons and attacks by the NDP who seemed far more interested in going after him than Harper. It is not surprising that, as the neophyte, he has had some difficulty in getting traction. The fact is that the Liberal platform is the only one that is fiscally responsible and really should resonate with Canadians if they bothered to pay attention. By and large, Ignatieff has shown himself to be a decent person and a leader the Liberals should be proud of. Winning is not necessarily everything, getting rid of Harper is.
I feel pretty much like you do, Alison. Ignatieff as leader...still not sure about him. He ran a very good campaign and I liked what he said, but he was far too small c for me on certain issues before this election - asbestos mining, mining in Colombia, extending the Afghan mission without a debate. I know he didn't act alone on those things, but as leader, he owns them.
But given a chance, who knows? And changing leaders so often doesn't help the Libs.
Tense weekend!
Post a Comment