Reaction to the Speech from the Throne

Governor General David Johnston read the 136th Speech from the Throne Friday in the Senate. I found it an underwhelming affair:

… one could not help but be struck by the poverty of both the ceremony and the content of the speech. It was a pro forma event bereft of any trappings that our great nation could have mustered – why not have the GG arrive on Parliament Hill in the splendour of the royal landau, for example – and the speech was an unsurprising collection of bullet points from the Conservative's campaign platform … No one wanted a speech of partisan triumphalism but surely we could have expected some statesman-like nation-building and leadership.

The editorial board of The Globe and Mail, on the other hand, found it to be a satisfactory document:

Stephen Harper has honoured his promise, immediately after the election, not to present the Canadian public with surprises. There were no marked deviations … On the whole, the speech effectively communicated the prospect of four years of good governance.

Here's a bit of the reaction from some other political players on the Hill:

Leader of the Official Opposition Jack Layton (NDP – Toronto-Danforth)

It was really a recitation of what they had proposed to do before, not really much of an outreach to other parties to say hey, let’s work on some problems together.  So that’s disappointing.  We didn’t hear anything about real job creation, the goods jobs that need to be part of helping to get people out of unemployment and build the future of the country, nothing on the Canada Pension Plan and retirement security in a significant way and that’s a huge problem for Canadians.  Family doctors, things we need now for health care.  Everything was way off in the future.  The cost of living, just basically addressing Canadians’ needs to meet their needs day to day and month to month, nothing there. Climate change, really nothing.

Interim Leader of the Liberal Party Bob Rae (Toronto Centre)

I must say there was an air of I thought considerable complacency about the document, simply a reiteration of the program and platform that we’ve heard on so many occasions from the government.  I always find it interesting when you have a statement from the Government of Canada and the word poverty doesn’t appear in the document.  There’s no, I think, real recognition of the challenge that a great many Canadian families are still facing. I didn’t see much imagination in the document in terms of our economy, the challenges that we’re facing. But I guess having seen dozens of Throne Speeches over my political career, I didn’t see anything particularly surprising or dramatic about this one.

Elizabeth May (GPC – Saanich-Gulf Islands)

Today’s Speech from the Throne did not include anything that spoke to a vision for Canada.  It was a workman-like agenda that took the numbers of things in the Conservative Party platform and the previous budget and brought them forward once again.  It didn’t give us a long-term vision and in fact it actually retrenched from some things that were in the platform.  ….there was more content in the Conservative Party’s platform on plans for the reenactment and recognition of the bicentennial of the War of 1812 than there was on climate change. In this speech, there was no reference to climate change so we’ve actually seen a lack of even the smallest mention of the single largest threat.