The Coalition of Losers Dies

Well so much for modeling Canada's Parliament on Italy's. The coalition between the Liberals, Bloc Heads and Taliban Jack's crew is kaput.

Ignatieff wants updates on budget's impact

OTTAWA — Michael Ignatieff effectively drove a nail in the coalition coffin today, confirming Liberals will support the Conservative budget as long as it makes key amendments.

Calling the Tory record “reckless, arrogant and short-sighted,” the Liberal Leader said he is putting the government “on probation.” He said yesterday’s budget is a “flawed document” because it does not go far enough to help Canadians who lose their jobs, fails to seize on opportunities to green the economy and lacks a credible plan for getting out of the $85-billion deficit hole.

Right. No bailout they whine, bail out they whine. And the Liberals NEVER incurred any debt when they were in power did they?

But he will table proposed changes to improve the fiscal plan and support it for the good of the country.

“Should Mr. Harper fail to satisfy the expectations of Canadians, we will be ready to defeat him and lead in his place,” he said. “Canadians don’t want another election, and they’re tired of political games. They have waited too long for action on the economy for us to fail them now because of partisan interest.”

So Mr. Unpronounceable DID check the poll numbers that came out after the coalition idea and saw the writing on the wall. Smart fellow. I will miss mumbler Dion though.

Dion's Speech Didn't Help His Cause

Stephane Dion as Mayor Tommy Shanks

Imagine... Canadians don't like the idea of the three losing parties taking over the Government. Colour me shocked. I think really the Canadian word for what the Libs, NDP and Bloc-heads are doing is pronouced "CHEATING" and the collective revulsion to it is akin to having someone score a goal while being offside and not getting called on it.

Harper has crushing poll lead on crisis

Prime Minister Harper has mounted a crushing polling lead as the result of a political crisis in which an opposition coalition sought to take power, a new survey showed on Friday.

If an election were held now, Harper's Conservatives would take a whopping 46 percent of the vote, more than enough to transform his minority in Parliament into a strong majority. In the October 14 election they received 37.6 percent of the vote.

The main opposition Liberals, the leftist New Democrats and the Bloc Quebecois, which wants to take Quebec out of Canada, signed a deal on Monday to try to replace Harper with a Liberal-NDP coalition supported by the Bloc.

They were upset with Harper's attempt, since withdrawn, to cut off direct subsidies of political parties and they also said he was not doing enough to boost the economy. During the election campaign, they had ruled out forming coalitions.

Harper mounted an attack on what he called a coalition driven by separatists and socialists, and public opinion swung his way.

Liberal support dropped to 23 percent from the 26.2 percent they won in the election and the New Democrats saw their backing fall to 13 percent from 18.2 percent.

An Ekos poll released the night before showed a lead of a similar magnitude, of 20 points, for the Conservatives.

Fifty-six percent of those polled by Ipsos Reid said they would rather go to another election, even though one was just held, rather than let the coalition govern.

Harper won seven weeks of breathing space on Thursday with the suspension of Parliament until late January, when he can present a budget with economic stimulus.

The coalition could try to bring him down then, though some Liberals are saying they should think hard before doing that.

Ipsos sampled 1,001 people, a sample which should carry a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points 19 times out of 20.