Cornwall ON – Politics is a blood sport and not for the squeamish. The Liberals are taking the heat for allowing the Harper budget to slime through to the Senate.
The 2010 budget bill sailed through the House of Commons by a vote of 138-126 on Tuesday, with 30 Liberal MPs absent to ensure the budget survived — along with the government.
NDP and Bloc Quebecois members voted against the budget en masse.
This is a common enough practice. Everyone on the opposition gets to sound bite off later that they didn’t support the budget, but gosh darn it; if it wasn’t for that case of flu making the rounds of mostly Liberal MP’s it’d have been defeated.
Now it’s up to the Senate to pick out some of the horrrid bits that are being attempted to be snuck through such as:
Bloc MP Christiane Gagnon accused the prime minister of “short-circuiting debates and … undermining the role and power of the public’s representatives.”
Ignatieff, too, recently called it a “dumpster bill” and “an abuse of power.” But his party wasn’t prepared to defeat or change the legislation for fear of causing a federal election, which they’re not prepared to fight and say Canadians don’t want.
And of course Jack Layton gets the easy lay up for two points.
“Oil is still flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, yet the Liberals helped the Conservatives adopt a budget bill that hands responsibility for environmental assessments to the industry-friendly National Energy Board,” NDP Leader Jack Layton said
What do you think Canada? Are you happy with this budget? Are you happy with the way it’s been greased through the halls of Parliament? You can post your comments below.
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Politics is just a game to them. Unfortunately, its a game they’re playing on the back’s of Canadian citizens!
I am surprised that only 30 Senators were absent. The ones that did show up must have been pissed they were expected to do work. They are a bunch of lazy crooks.
Glassbowl it was MP’s that were missing, not Senators.
Haha you are right. That explains the high attendance. 🙂
We don’t have an official opposition. We need an official opposition. For four years now, the Liberals have been propping up the Reformatories, and only the NDP and the Bloc have been voting against the Harper gang in any meaningful way. It’s long past the time that the Libs should have gotten over their in-fighting, grow some balls, and do what they were elected to do. Why would the NDP and the Bolc want to form a coalition with the Liberals who have already formed a coalition with the Reformatories?