- James, You’re spinning counterclockwise this time

posted to Toronto Star, 14 Jul.’09, “Michael Ignatieff hurt by his own tactics”, 14 Jul.’09, James Travers
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/665630#Comments


James, You’re spinning counterclockwise this time.

The problem is that Harper and the Cons have made it very clear that they simply do not compromise. Unless, of course, they are taken to the brink of losing power.

This in-your-face, my-way-or-the-highway approach to governing by Harper and the Cons leaves the Opposition very little leverage except to use the ‘non-confidence’ card.

The best that Ignatieff could do is to force Harper to agree to confidence votes in the future so that even he, Harper, would have some difficulty in shutting parliament down to avoid such again. That’s the realities of the current circumstances. In such context, Ignatieff did exactly the right thing, not only for his own good and the good of the Liberal Party but the good of all Canadians, as time will tell.

Ignatieff this week demonstrated the type of compromise and decisions making that a modern democracy with a complex, open and tolerant, multi-and-competing interest, commerce based society requires. The I’m-right-your-wrong, I’m-big-your-small, sink-or-swim extreme right wing, ideologue approach of Harper, Flaherty and the Cons has no place in it.

(from my posting, 19 Jun.’09)