Dion's choice: Save the planet, or save his political ass
OTTAWA -- Only fear, driven by unprincipled self-preservation, will keep the Liberals from triggering Canada's third election inside of five years now as the Conservatives drive a new uncompromising agenda forward.
...The inconvenient truth behind his Throne Speech predicament is that Mr. Dion must either vote to save the planet or save his political ass. Half measures, desperate hair-splitting and voting shenanigans by the Liberals only justify public cynicism about his party as a band of quivering opportunists interested in keeping their MP paycheques.
Lest we forget, Kyoto still enjoys sacred cow status in public opinion and it was the Liberals whose MP successfully sponsored a bill last spring forcing the government to draft a plan to meet the Kyoto targets.
To accept the Speech from the Throne as an approved government agenda is to agree one of the party's few policy successes is an unattainable farce. It would deliver a hard, if not fatal, hit on the credibility of a leader whose claim to political integrity and personal honesty are his greatest, if not only, strengths.
... The Liberals cannot become a rollover Opposition for long. At most they have two surrender-monkey acts to perform to keep the government in business before they become a Liberal laughingstock.
For some reason I keep thinking about the movie 'Braveheart'. Throughout the film, Robert the Bruce is advised by his father and the other nobles to continue appeasing the English in return for land and title, assuring him that he cannot possibly beat them in battle.
In the end, Robert and his army turn up at a mock battle with the English where everyone expects him to pay his respects and leave the field. Instead, he takes up the battle cry of William Wallace and leads the Scots to victory and freedom at Bannockburn.
Too bad it's fiction. But wouldn't that be something?
I have a hard time believing that the Liberals would do anything to "save the planet." The paltry measures they scraped together under the One Tonne Challenge were nothing more than an exercise in public relations.
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