MEXICAN STANDOFF

Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty delivered his budget this week and delivered what he had been promising for some time.

Nothing!

Nothing for those struggling against poverty, for those trying to help the environment, nothing for middle class families and nothing to alleviate medical wait times. They delivered next to nothing for manufacturing, seniors, new Canadians and Aboriginals. Stephan Dion was right. It was a mile long and an inch thick.

So why the heck is he supporting it?

The Liberals have announced they would table amendments to the budget but they are carefully trying to carefully navigate through a minefield where a misstep has the possibility of blowing Parliament up. If the Liberal amendments pass, the government will likely fall and we will be into a Spring election. The trick for the Liberals is to make amendments that are repellent to NDP and Bloc that they won’t side with the Grits while not so odious that they come back to take a chunk out of Stephan Dion’s butt.

If the amendments fail and the original budget is voted on, the next question is, what does Stephan Dion do? In my opinion there is nothing to do but do exactly the same thing that Jim Flaherty did this week while his financial plan.

Nothing!

Observers, at the time, said the Liberals habit of abstaining on crucial votes in the fall would hurt them, and yet in some polls they are still ahead. The same people said Dion’s leadership was a killer have miscalculated the general public’s disinterest in superficial, and occasionally fabricated, matters and are more interested in the usual things. Healthcare, the environment, and the economy. If leadership was the number one concern of the electorate then Tommy Douglas would have enjoyed a long stay at 24 Sussex Drive.

The Liberals look like they are going to wait for the perfect time, for them, to pull the trigger on an election and should be touting themselves as being firmly in the driver’s seat. Instead, they continue to let others define them and eventually if you throw enough mud, some of it is bound to stick.

The silver lining of this whole week for Stephan Dion is that Stephen Harper has run out of ideas, run out of money and soon will run out of time. Tough times are ahead and a shrinking economy, escalating job losses in manufacturing and economists predicting a litre gas going for $1.40 this summer will not sit well with voters. The time for the Conservatives blaming their predecessors has long since past and with a record to run on and a bleak economic outlet, in the end Stephen Harper may be the one covered in it.

As I saw it this week, the PM and Leader of the Opposition tried to stare each other down.

And they both blinked.