Poll punishment! The provicator or trigger-puller?
Another week and another confidence vote in the House of Commons. This time on the Finance Minister’s economic statement/mini budget. It might not become a weekly occurrence but it’s shaping up to be the way the Harper government plans to operate more often than not.
The federal Tories seem content to govern as though they have a majority perhaps sensing the only consequence is the chance to form one – if and when the Liberals have had enough of staying out of the house when it come time to vote against something that would bring the government down.
Stephane Dion said again this week that he will bring the government down one of these days but not this week. He won’t say which week or over which issue.
I appeared as a panelist on Anne Rhomer’s CityTV open line show the day after the economic statement and heard at least one caller conclude that Canadians don’t want an election and that he and others are not being fooled by the tactics being used in Ottawa, leaving the impression that both Liberals and Conservatives would face a day of reckoning, but I’m not clear what he meant . Does he mean that Canadians will eventually punish one side or the other at an election or both?
Who do you think would be punished more at the polls? The party who provoked an election? Or the party who pulled the trigger?
November 12th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
I can’t really say which would be punished more, but I can certainly guarantee that it will be the polling stations who will feel the punishment. My prediction is 52-53% voter turnout, meaning that if either the Conservatives or the Liberals form a majority, it will be due to less than half of Canadians.