Does Jack Layton want an election?
Last spring, it certainly seemed that way. As his caucus voted against the minority government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper in one confidence vote after another, Mr. Layton and the NDP taunted Michael Ignatieff and the Liberals for propping up the Tories.
They even took out radio ads that challenged Mr. Ignatieff to “take a stand” and defeat the government.
But now, as MPs prepare to return to the House of Commons Monday and with the Liberal declaration that they will no longer support the Tories and will indeed push for an election at the first opportunity, Mr. Layton's springtime ardour to “stand up” to Mr. Harper has changed.
“I think some Canadians are going to be looking for a new direction,” Mr. Layton said in an interview with Canwest News Service and Global National. “There's two ways we can get it: either by Mr. Mr. Harper working with other parties to establish a new approach on some key issues — that's what we're offering — or by rattling the cages and trying to take us off into an election.”
Mr. Layton has been here before … [Read the rest]
I took the picture on the left during the 2006 campaign. I left the Vancouver debates that year for a week with Layton. While other leaders jetted off in their campaign planes, Layton took us on ferry ride from Vancouver to Nanaimo — and the late November weather was perfect. This snap was taken on deck of the ferry as we were leaving Horseshoe Bay.
“Layton said his party, unlike the Liberals, is determined to make Parliament work and will not oppose the government for the sake of opposing. He refused to get drawn into threats about defeating the government if Harper ignores opposition priorities, preferring to wait and see.”
Take a guess when Layton said that. March 24, 2006.
The NDP has always said they're willing to work with the other parties so I don't see how you can claim they're changing their tune now.
Oh goodness gracious, Robert! For such an intelligent fella, surely you don't believe what you just wrote! The NDP held a 'birthday party” on Parliament Hill with candles, parties, and lots of rhetoric last spring to mark the 50th time the Liberals voted with the govt on an confidence motion. Hungry as I was that day, I ate some of that cake. (It was delicious) And on every confidence motion since, Layton's communications staff has sought out reporters to point out, once again, the spinelessness of the Liberals. If not for the NDP, I'm sure I nor any of my PPG colleagues would know that the Liberals have now voted to support the government 79 times and counting.
Layton, Mulcair and every other NDP MP was openly contemptuous of the Liberals for their failure to bring the government down.
Now, when the Liberals finally agree to go, Layton, Mulcair et al have become the very font of moderation and contemplation, saying precisely what Ignatieff was saying last spring: That Canadians expect MPs to work together!
That's fine: I suspect that Canadians do indeed expect MPs to work together. But Layton, alone among the leaders, could come out of the next few weeks with a serious credibility problem if he votes for the government — just once — after his and his party's unrelenting derisive dismissal of the Liberals last spring for doing just that.
I'm well aware of the rhetoric on the Liberal vote. I'm also know it began in response to liberals who kept claiming the NDP was propping up the Conservatives. But that doesn't change the fact that Layton has always said he wants to make Parliament work. It's simply a canned response, or as Kady O'Malley says:
For anyone out there spending this weekend offering up prayers and sacrificing goats to the election gods, those are, indeed, soothing-sounding words that are pouring forth from Jack Layton on his desire to Make Parliament Work — a phrase that has, ITQ must once again point out, gone from being an irritatingly vague, but tolerable political cliche to what linguists refer to as a ‘discourse particle‘.
It just doesn't signal at all that Layton has changed his tune or will support the Conservatives in a vote of confidence.
As far as credibility goes if he were to support the Conservatives, I'd say that depends on what he gets in return. Getting nothing or very little in return would be devastating. But then, Layton isn't exactly a cheap date.
Either way, we're supposedly going to know by Friday who is bluffing.