Conservatism is not the issue

By Andrew Coyne - Tuesday, February 3, 2009 at 11:20 PM - 131 Comments

My recent piece on the federal budget as marking the end point of conservatism in Canada seems to have been the subject of some misinterpretation. Many people have taken it as a lament, as if this were something to be mourned. I rather thought I was just stating a fact.

I hold no particular brief for the Conservative Party of Canada. I was opposed to the party’s formation, preferring that Reform and the Progressive Conservatives should have remained separate parties that formed a strategic alliance — a coalition! — as European  parties do. Nor have I ever been able to see much point in conservatism, as such: why one would want to subscribe to a whole set of unrelated ideas simply because they all fell under the conservative label remains a mystery to me. It’s less an ideology than a grab-bag of habits and emotional leanings, not least the deep nervoses and resentments of a party that has lost too many elections.

The party/movement’s general predisposition towards user fees and private insurance in health care always struck me as simplistic (and not particularly market-oriented, properly understood), its willingness to rent itself out to the provinces in general, and Quebec in particular, has been terribly damaging to the country, and its refusal to deal seriously with global warming was blinkered and counter-productive. Over the years, I’ve had occasion to quarrel with conservatives over gay rights, immigration, drug policy, and the whole tangled archipelago of issues surrounding the Charter of Rights, the notwithstanding clause and judicial review.

But at least these were positions! Conservatives may have been wrong on these things, but anything’s better than a party that is incapable of being right or wrong, because it does not stand for anything. Conservatism may not be my thing, but it is for a lot of other people, and I grieve for their sake that the party they have invested so much of their hopes in has turned to such warm beer. And all Canadians, whatever their leanings, should wish for more balance and diversity in our political choices. Continue…

Budget '09: This ain't Right

By Nancy Macdonald - Friday, January 30, 2009 at 1:55 PM - 17 Comments

How’s this for a Conservative nightmare? Billions to new regional-development programs, failing industries, employment insurance, social housing, and, ahem, the arts? Millions for a train to nowhere in northern Manitoba? Another $12 million for Quebec cruise ships? In B.C. and Alberta, mayors and premiers also went home happy. In fact, in western Canada, some of the loudest complaints about Stephen Harper’s budget are coming from within the fold. “The Conservatives escaped to fight another day, but what are they fighting for?” former Tory Cabinet minister Monte Solberg wondered yesterday in Vancouver. The Conservative stalwart, who likened Harper’s “dripping red” budget to a “terrible phantasm,” unleashed to “torment” conservatives, worries that Harper has “sacrificed balanced budgets on the alter of political expediency.” Continue…

UPDATED: One of Those Periodic ITQ Polls: If you were Liberal leader, what would you do?

By kadyomalley - Friday, January 30, 2009 at 12:18 PM - 65 Comments

About the  Newfoundlandian uprising apparently underway in caucus, that is.

UPDATE – From Liberal House Leader Ralph Goodale’s post-QP scrum:

Question:       Mr. Goodale, will there be punishment for two Newfoundland MP’s or perhaps more?

Ralph Goodale:  We’re, we’re discussing those issues in our, in our caucus at the moment.  The, the issue affecting Newfoundland and Labrador is a, is a serious issue.  Our Members of Parliament are very vigorous in representing their, their constituents and the issue is, is being thorough discussed internally at the moment and there’s nothing really further to say at this time.

Question:       Well can, can they vote against the budget?  Yes or no?

Ralph Goodale:  The issue is being discussed internally within our caucus.  You saw today from Question Period that the, the government seemed to be a little bit nonplussed about the exact nature of the issue that’s being raised here.  They kept giving answers with respect to equalization where the, the issue is related to the Atlantic Accord, and the two are separate.  I have a bit of a history on that file so I understand the distinction here and, and the government I think is being, is being a little bit cute with the language, trying to answer a question that wasn’t asked.

Mr. Byrne was very clear today.  He was talking about the natural resources exclusion rate and the effect of that on the accord arithmetic not on the equalization arithmetic.  And the government, now it was the Parliamentary Secretary that was answering, perhaps he didn’t understand that subtle distinction.  It is an important distinction and it may be that the, the government has some further homework to do here.  Our MP’s are, are doing their job and they’re representing their constituents and all other matters are being discussed internally within our caucus. [...]

Question:       Mr. Goodale, this question of Newfoundland and you were saying there even there, they’re not answering the question and all that says.  So what kind of a bind are Newfoundland and Labrador MP’s in if there’s no change?

Ralph Goodale:  Well, this is, this is a serious issue.  We’re not going to cross bridges till we come to them.  The point is what appears to be a, a mistake has been identified.  We’re going to go to work on that and do our very best to, to represent the public interest in this country.  Our MP’s have been, have been very vigorous and we expect them to do their job.  We’ll cross further bridges when we come to it, but the point is, and let me go back to our broad amendment about, about accountability, one of the, one of the tests that is in that amendment is fairness to all regions of the country.  That’s explicitly written in our amendment.

So if the, if the government, in addressing this issue, and bear in mind the source of this information is not the budget documents per se so far.  The source of this information is a financial briefing given by Finance officials to the officials in Premier Danny Williams’s office.  It’s, this is where this controversy has arisen.  So if, if, if the briefing is accurate or if Danny Williams is interpreting it accurately, the place where we will see the hard information would be in the budget implementation bill.  So let’s, let’s see what the government actually tables in terms of that bill.

Question:       But you call it a mistake.  You don’t want to endorse a mistake, do you?

Ralph Goodale:  No.  No, obviously we would expect them to, to correct a mistake, but going back to the issue of fairness, if overall, as this, as this process moves forward over the next several weeks, if the government does not deliver on the, the test that we’ve established, protecting the vulnerable, protecting jobs, creating new jobs for the future, being fair to all regions, then we have the opportunity on future confidence motions to send them packing and that’s what that, that’s what that accountability amendment to the budget is intended to accomplish.

The Commons: 'It gets to the point of being tragic'

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, January 29, 2009 at 7:15 PM - 41 Comments

There is perhaps nothing more crushing for the proud man than another man’s pity.

“It gets to the point of being tragic,” Jack Layton moaned the other day, sounding more than a little sad, “that the Prime Minister will make promises that he has no intention of keeping. Can the Prime Minister tell us which of the promises that he made in yesterday’s budget … he plans on breaking in the months to come?”

Stephen Harper, understandably a bit hesitant to prognosticate these days, didn’t have much of an answer for this one. Which is getting to be an identifiable trend.

Though clearly not the best of times for this Prime Minister, it’s probably a bit premature to declare this the worst of situations. For now let us merely say that when historians take stock of Mr. Harper’s life and times, they will certainly find better moments than this. Continue…

UPDATED: It came from the floor of the Commons: The Bloc Quebecois Subamendment

By kadyomalley - Thursday, January 29, 2009 at 3:02 PM - 26 Comments

Not that it has much chance of being passed, mind you, but since the first vote takes place later today, I figured we should at least know the substance of the motion itself, aside from the political optics of it being the First Vote on the Budget:

That the amendment be amended by deleting all the words after the words “on condition that the Government” and substituting the following:

“maintain the right of women to settle pay equity issues in court, and abandon its preference for tax cuts for the well off, instead redistributing this revenue to the neediest members of our society, particularly by responding to the unanimous demands of the National Assembly of Quebec as formulated in the motion adopted on January 15, 2009, to assist workers, communities and businesses hit by the economic slowdown, support at-risk sectors, particularly manufacturing and forestry, in the same way as the automobile industry, and enhance the employment insurance program by making the eligibility criteria more flexible, and on condition that it maintain the equalization program in its current form and relinquish the idea of setting up a pan-Canadian securities commission.”.

UPDATE:
According to Gilles Duceppe, this motion “basically repeats the motion passed unanimously in the National Assembly, along with a few other elements.” Further, “when the time comes to vote on it, all the members from Quebec will face a very clear choice: a choice for or against Quebec. All Quebec members who vote against this amendment to the amendment and in favour of the Conservative budget will be choosing Canada over Quebec.”

Stephen the Builder

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, January 29, 2009 at 11:18 AM - 6 Comments

Short excerpt from the pool report for the Prime Minister’s latest photo op.

Day Two of Harper’s construction-site tour consists of the prime minister and John Baird greeting and chatting with about a dozen construction workers at what would ordinarily be the vehicle entrance to the congress centre property…

Following the previous day’s drama involving the nail gun, photographers lobbied PMO officials — with no success — to have the prime minister play with the hydraulic shovel.

The end of Canadian conservatism

By Andrew Coyne - Thursday, January 29, 2009 at 2:30 AM - 211 Comments

Say what you like about the Tories: they don’t do things by halves. When they spend, they spend. When they go into debt, they do it $100 billion at a time. And when they decide to finish off what remains of conservatism in Canada—as a movement, as a philosophy—they go out with a bang.

We can safely say that the strategy of “incrementalism,” at least, is a thing of the past. With this week’s historic budget, the Conservatives’ already headlong retreat from principle has become a rout—a great final leap into the void. Understand: there will be no going back from this, for the party or for the country. Whatever the budget’s soothing talk of “temporary” this and “extraordinary” that, and for all its well-mannered charts showing spending obediently returning to its pen, deficits meekly subsiding, multi-billion-dollar “investments” repaid in full, we are in fact headed somewhere we have never been before. We are on course toward a massive and permanent increase in the size and scope of government: record spending, sky-high borrowing, and—ultimately, inevitably—higher taxes. And all this before the first of the baby boomers have had a chance to retire.

Continue…

Budget to possibly destroy country

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 28, 2009 at 10:49 PM - 17 Comments

Unreformed cowboy Myron Thompson seems dispirited.

“The big question is where is this money going and what exactly is it going to accomplish?” Thompson said Tuesday before getting a chance to analyze the nuts and bolts of the Conservative budget. ”And if it’s going into these socialist programs that the Jack Laytons love so much and the Gilles Duceppes, I fear for the country.”

The Commons: Behold, the majesty of ways and means

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 28, 2009 at 5:34 PM - 16 Comments

At the conclusion of Question Period, the House proceeded with the pro forma. The tabling of documents, the presentation of petitions, the notice of motions for the production of papers, requests for emergency debates.

Liberal Mauril Bélanger got up and asked that the House move post-haste to discussion of the capital’s public transit strike. The Speaker agreed with the gravity of the situation, but noted that the weather outside was dreadful, a snow storm adding to the already icy hell that is Ottawa. In the interests then of everyone getting home safe—public transit obviously not being an option—the debate would be held Thursday.

Business moved then to Ways and Means Motion No. 1, resuming adjourned debate of the government’s budgetary policy. Up first, the leader of Her Majesty’s Official Opposition, the honourable member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore.

Most identifiable members of the government side had long since left. Bev Oda sat alone along the front bench, working through some paper work.

“Canada’s ship of state has entered some very rough and turbulent water and the captain’s steering through this storm has been erratic,” Michael Ignatieff said, barely restraining himself from breaking into that timeless sea shanty about the drunken sailor. “He misjudged, he misled, he misguided. At first he failed to act and then he acted irresponsibly. Now finally, he recognizes that we are in real danger. Finally, he is taking some measures to head for safety, but it has been a long time coming.”

Continue…

Reasonable Question of the Day

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 28, 2009 at 4:28 PM - 30 Comments

The NDP’s Megan Leslie questions the government’s home reno policy.

Building a deck is a nice thing, but what about Canada’s homeless who cannot front the money for the tax credit?

Or, for that matter, a house upon which to add that deck

Meanwhile, in the House foyer…

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 28, 2009 at 12:23 PM - 10 Comments

Jack Layton sounds a bit like a 16-year-old who just got dumped by his girlfriend.

Further adventures in photo-ops

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 28, 2009 at 12:12 PM - 18 Comments

From the pool report of the Prime Minister’s visit to a construction site this morning.

PM’s handed a nail gun, which he uses to nail in a window frame.

He says: “I’m not an expert on this,” as he grabs the gun.

He struggles with it at first, getting an initial shot into the wall but coming up empty on his next four attempts.

PM: “Oh. Misfire.”

He hands someone the gun, and that person tinkers with it and hands it back to Harper. The PM then succesfully fires three shots into the wall.

PM: “There we go. It’s all done. I have a second job.”

'We are putting this government on probation'

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 28, 2009 at 12:11 PM - 8 Comments

Michael Ignatieff is a bewildering, but entertaining performer. His preferred hand motions this morning were the clenched fist and the back-handed swipe. He walks and talks like a man who considers himself to be walking and talking from an advantageous position. Which is particularly disorienting because for the past two years one could only say as much of Stephen Harper.

He deviated only marginally from his script, so the prepared text after the jump. Continue…

The era of federal-provincial bickering is over. It is now the era of federal-provincial open threats. Progress!

By Paul Wells - Wednesday, January 28, 2009 at 10:15 AM - 18 Comments

Kumbaya, my friends, KUM-Ba-YAAAA!!!!!

“If he’s throwing Quebec overboard, it’s really too bad for him too because he’s going to be in an election soon, and you will understand that he may need the ridings he still has in Quebec.”

— Quebec finance minister Monique Jérôme-Forget

100 days of decision: day 1,101

By Paul Wells - Wednesday, January 28, 2009 at 8:55 AM - 23 Comments

Monte Solberg, who served in this Conservative government for nearly three years, has decided that — darn it — it’s time for this Conservative government to decide what it wants to do when it grows up:

This budget isn’t a conservative document so much as it’s a political document; a document that will give the Conservative government the room necessary to craft a compelling conservative vision for the future.

They must craft that vision without hesitation, and they must do it in a way that makes people want to be a part of it.

First one to call this his "walk in the snow" has to go out and shovel it

By kadyomalley - Wednesday, January 28, 2009 at 8:42 AM - 79 Comments

ITQ will be liveblogging the Liberal leader’s press conference this morning. She has absolutely no idea what he’s going to say, although she’s hoping for a Yeats quote; apparently, he’ll fill us in on whether or not his party is leaning towards supporting the budget, bringing down the government or introducing some sort of amendment that would provide the PM with the perfect opportunity to demonstrate his newfound appreciation for nonpartisan cooperative collaboration.

Check back at 11am to find out!

(An aside: You guys, this is so exciting! Don’t you love those days on the Hill when our journalistic unified theory of the immediate short term everything can be summed up thusly: “Wait, what? Did we miss something? What’s going on?” And how infuriating must it be for the Prime Minister that the day after his government delivered the most extraordinary-est budget in the history of modern Canadian political ever, all eyes are not on him or his government, but on Michael Ignatieff? Unless this is all part of that craftily designed time-release communications strategy, of course. [Insert hoary chess/checkers cliche here.])

10:41:19 AM
Ahh, that’s more like it – You’ve no idea how much I missed my trusty berry during yesterday’s lockup. Liveblogging on a laptop just isn’t the same – you can’t get up and wander around, for one thing. Not that I’m doing much wandering at the moment, of course: I am stationed in my usual just-past-the-pillar seat in the National Press Theatre, listening to the room fill up with my slightly snow-encrusted colleagues, wondering – as is our lot in life – what on earth will happen next, and what about after *that*?

Team Ignatieff is already here – well, the Team, not sure about the Ignatieff – but they’re not letting anything slip as far as what their boss is going to say. What ITQ *can* report, however, is that he won’t be saying it from behind a desk; the middle leaf of the trademark NPT table has just been hauled off the stage and replaced with a lectern that I’m fairly sure is actually taller than me.

11:01:17 AM
Well, he’s now officially late, although that *may* be due to the last minute addition of the lectern, which forces the assembled camera crews to shuffle around until they’re satisfied that the angle will make any looming by the star of the show sufficiently ominous.

Continue…

Look at us, we're doing stuff (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 28, 2009 at 12:49 AM - 11 Comments

I regret to admit that I posted about the morning’s photo op in haste.

Indeed, had I taken the time to more fully research the situation I would have realized to precisely what degree our ministers of the crown were positioned like potted plants and other bits of scenery, as explained in this clip from CBC (courtesy of BCer in Toronto). Continue…

Budget ’09: Fearful asymmetries

By Paul Wells - Wednesday, January 28, 2009 at 12:30 AM - 33 Comments

Andrew Coyne will be leading our budget coverage in the next edition. He felt more strongly about the budget than I did, as you will already have noticed. My own column will be kind of wistful. I do want to make a few points, not necessarily connected, in the meantime.

• Last spring I wrote a column arguing, tongue in cheek, that Liberals and Conservatives were already running a coalition government. Andrew wrote a column more recently, suggesting more seriously that they give such a thing a try. This budget is clearly designed to form the basis for a Conservative-Liberal coalition de facto. It’s surprising, though I suppose it shouldn’t be, how little attempt the Conservatives make to placate the Bloc or the NDP. In the latter case especially, that’s obviously a big change. The cozy little arrangement by which Jack Layton and Stephen Harper paid to Martin Liberalism, and which lasted well after the 2006 election, is over. This is the price Layton pays, perhaps gladly, for turning the NDP caucus into a machine for voting No to the Conservatives. But it points up an interesting feature of the political landscape since the last election and, at least, until the next: the Liberals are going to govern in coalition with somebody. It can be the Conservatives or it can be the NDP with Bloc support. But the Conservatives can’t govern alone and they can’t govern durably with the other opposition parties. And the NDP-Bloc can’t govern alone or with the Conservatives. That leaves the Liberals, and only them, with the freedom and the obligation to choose. Continue…

Budget '09: A view from the West

By Nicholas Köhler - Tuesday, January 27, 2009 at 8:33 PM - 2 Comments

Response to today’s federal budget was slow to seep out of Western Canada today, with premiers in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba still mum on what they thought of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s stimulus package. But one big city mayor, Calgary’s Dave Bronconnier, appeared pleasantly surprised with what the budget puts on the table. “There is much to like,” Bronconnier told a radio show this afternoon, part of a media blitz the mayor conducted in the wake of the budget’s release. “What I believe the government was trying to do, which is a short-term stimulus to deal with the creation of jobs. And when you look at it short-term, $4 billion for infrastructure funding, that is directed towards jobs.” Continue…

Budget '09: Make the next generation pay

By Duncan Hood - Tuesday, January 27, 2009 at 8:06 PM - 3 Comments

So the budget is out and it looks like the Tories are going to take us time travelling. Poof! It’s the 1970s again, and there’s no problem the government can’t spend its way out of. Never mind that it didn’t work then, and it left us with a government debt that crippled a generation and was only recently paid down to a reasonable level.

The truth is that we’ve been living beyond our means for a while now, and the only solution is to get used to living within our means. There is no black magic that can make that ugly truth go away. Running consecutive deficits is simply a way of borrowing more money in a desperate attempt to keep the party going. But it won’t stop the pain, it will just delay it. It’s like dealing with a hangover by going on another drinking binge. Excessive government debt will have to be paid back down again in the future, so we are simply punishing “future” Canadians for our mistakes. By running up a deficit we may make life better now, but we’re making our future less bright.

I saw Warren Buffett give a talk in Toronto about a year ago, and he observed that there has never been a case where a government had run up a large debt where it didn’t subsequently crank up the money presses and allow the value of its currency to fall, thus reducing the amount it owes to its creditors. Problem is, that usually leads to inflation. No one can predict the future, but with governments running up big debts all over the world, it doesn’t seem impossible that global inflation could be a huge problem five years from now. If it is, it will only make things worse.

Anyone would be in favour of stimulating the economy if they knew it would make things better, but I’m not 100 per cent sure that it will. Not the way this budget does it, anyway. Even the Tories seem to have misgivings about what they’re doing, hinting that they’re being pushed into something that they’re not entirely comfortable with. I can understand spending government money on bridges, roads and other infrastructure projects, because that stuff needs to be done anyway. But I’m not sure I like the idea of bankrolling my neighbour’s kitchen renovation, which is exactly what this budget forces me to do. It will no doubt help my neighbour, but I don’t think it will help the country—and it certainly won’t help me.

The Commons: 'Our government shares that regret'

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 27, 2009 at 7:54 PM - 9 Comments

When it was all over, when Jim Flaherty had finished with his mind-numbing ode—24 pages in all—to these mind-numbing times, the Liberals sent up Siobhan Coady, a rookie MP from Newfoundland, to respond. From the back row of the opposition side she wondered aloud about what has happened these last few months—the buying opportunities of October, the optimistic projections of November, the Prime Minister’s abrupt dash from Parliament, the grave pronouncements of now and the Canadians rendered jobless in between.

“Ya gonna vote for it or not?” yelped a Conservative, apparently eager to have the budget approved and this dalliance with bipartisanship done with.

“As I’m sure the honourable member knows,” Mr. Flaherty said in Ms. Coady’s direction, “we are living in extraordinary times.”

No doubt here was a rare motion that might pass this place unanimously. Continue…

Serenity now

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 27, 2009 at 7:45 PM - 1 Comment

Full column on the day to follow shortly. Not including this, Michael Ignatieff’s official—at least until he meets with reporters tomorrow morning—response to the budget.

“We stand here today at the end of January with thousands of Canadians out of a job since the House was adjourned. The government did not make the right choices when times were good. Now that times are hard, times are tough, it is up to this party to decide whether the choices it has made today are the right ones. The House should know, this will be a close call. This will be a tough vote. However, we will make that choice calmly and serenely.”

Budget '09: Tories take a final leap into the void

By Andrew Coyne - Tuesday, January 27, 2009 at 4:46 PM - 165 Comments

Say what you like about the Tories: they don’t do things by halves. When they spend, they spend. When they go into debt, they do it $100-billion at a time. And when they decide to put an end to conservatism in Canada — as a philosophy, as a movement—they go out with a bang.

We can safely say that the strategy of incrementalism, at least, has been put to bed. With this historic budget, the Conservatives’ already headlong retreat from principle has become a rout: a great final leap into the void. For there will be no going back from this, for the party or for the country. Whatever the budget’s soothing talk of “temporary” this and “extraordinary” that, and for all its well-mannered charts showing spending obediently returning to its pen, deficits meekly subsiding, “investments” repaid in full, we are in fact headed somewhere we have never been before. We are on course towards a massive and permanent increase in the size and scope of government: record spending, sky-high borrowing, and — ultimately, inevitably — higher taxes. And all this before the first of the Baby Boomers have had a chance to retire, and cough up a lung.

Continue…

Budget '09: Bailout

By Philippe Gohier - Tuesday, January 27, 2009 at 4:38 PM - 9 Comments

Just about every industry in Canada will find at least something to smile about on budget day. From forestry to ship-building to tourism, Ottawa plans to spread its bailout around, albeit unevenly.

The auto sector—and the victims of its collapse—will take home the lion’s share of the money intended to soften the recession’s blow. Supplementing the government’s previous announcement of $2.7 billion in loans to the Big Three is a program to encourage Canadians to buy more cars. The newly-created Canadian Secured Credit Facility will have a $12 billion bankroll to help finance vehicle and equipment purchases by Canadian consumers and business. The southern Ontario communities most affected by the downturn in the auto industry will also receive over $1 billion over the next five years to help to diversify local economies.

Also at Macleans.ca
Budget ‘09: Tories take a final leap into the void
Budget ‘09: The Overview
Budget ‘09: Stimulus
Budget ‘09: Economic Outlook
Budget ‘09: Personal Finance

The forestry sector is also the target of significant government largesse. Ottawa will invest $170 million in the sector over two years in order to help its diversify its product base and introduce new processes. Though it’s not explicitly targeted to a specific region or industry, forestry towns will be able to draw from a separate $1 billion fund, paid out over two years, to help them survive the sector’s struggles. In his budget address to Parliament, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said the Community Adjustment Fund “will help communities across Canada facing unique challenges, from the mountain pine beetle infestation to the declining demand for seafood.”

Though they don’t figure as prominently in the budgetary allocations, virtually every other major industry in Canada stands to receive government money in some form or another. Farmers will receive a $500 million boost over five years, in addition to a $50 million investment in the expansion of Canada’s slaughterhouse capacity; Canadian shipyards can count on $175 million worth of new orders from Ottawa; even the much-maligned arts and culture sector will get a boost, with an extra $20 million earmarked for the National Arts Training Contribution Program, and a $200-million allocation for the Canadian Television Fund. In one of its most understated moves, the Conservative government has also revived the sponsorship program with a $100 million commitment to support “marquee festivals and events that promote tourism” over two years.

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff says opposition politicians can take credit for the budget’s more generous provisions. Though he wouldn’t reveal whether his party was willing to support the document, Ignatieff conceded “there are some positive sides to this budget.” Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan was, for his part, enamoured with the money Ottawa plans to send his way to help struggling industries. The strategy to fund just about every sector imaginable was indeed intended to garner widespread support. That it will likely do so is at least partly due to the fact its fiercest ideological opponents are the ones who drafted it.