There will be no summer election – both Harper and Ignatieff have decreed this. So just how did the government manage to secure the confidence of the House for that much longer? By appointing a “working group” to examine reforming EI over the summer.
But how will this help those who are unemployed now? Err, well, it won’t. Ignatieff said that it helps them by “breaking the impasse in Parliament.” But that seems like a whole lot of water in the wine. And sure, he’ll have his MPs Mike Savage and Marlene Jennings plus another senior policy person on the working group, and yes, they have a firm date of September 28th to report back to the House – the same day that they have agreed for the government’s third “report card” to come out. And they’ve also agreed to put in writing that the Liberals will get an opposition day within a week of that in order to then decide if they have confidence in the government.
It’s not a guarantee, Ignatieff said. But he wants you to know that he’s done his “darndest” to do something. He says the Prime Minister agrees that the 58 regional standards for EI don’t make sense – so hey, there’ s progress we can believe in.
Ignatieff also wants you do know that thanks to his leadership, we’re getting “evidence-based criticism” of the government in the House. Not that the government has exactly been forthcoming with much “evidence” of their fiscal situation, and he admitted as much in his little press junket this morning. (Remind me why this isn’t a climb-down again?)
But what about the isotope crisis? Wasn’t that part of the conditions laid out on Monday? Ignatieff was glad someone asked. He’s let Harper know that a plan to deal with the crisis has to be made public, and it needs to be released soon. Harper said that he heard him, so there you have it. No deadline, no actual timeline, and no guarantee that we’ll just get the same five talking points repackaged with a bunch of photos of Harper looking like he cares about people with cancer.
But hey, at least we’re not going to the polls again, and that’s what really matters to Canadians, right?
Why you can trust Xtra
