Michael Ignatieff is right to demand more answers from Stephen Harper and his Conservative government with respect to the economic progress report released last week. But forcing an election will do nothing to solve any of the questions the Liberal leader wants addressed, nor will it help Canadians during a time when they need as much as government can give.
Unlike his contemporaries in the House of Commons, Ignatieff did not blindly toss the Harper government’s update aside on principle after it was released. Instead, he took the weekend to think it through, then came back Monday with a list of four grievances he wants the prime minister to address — Employment Insurance reforms (EI), infrastructure funding, the isotope crisis and the government’s plan to deal with the mounting deficit, now officially pegged at $50.2 billion. He stated the Liberal Party would not vote to defeat the government if Harper shows he is willing to negotiate. Of course, this could be just another example of a Liberal stalling tactic, which the country has become used to over the last two years. But at least this manoeuvre has an air of legitimacy and leadership to it.
Sadly, forcing an election will answer none of Ignatieff’s questions and solve none of the inefficiencies in the Conservatives’ answer to the recession. While the Liberals, according to a recent EKOS poll, are slightly more popular than the Conservatives, voters would return another minority government — likely still led by Harper. After all, who likes switching captains in mid-cruise?
An election would stall for two months progress on any hope of reform to EI, something Harper has said might be coming in the fall, to include the self-employed. There would be no answer to the isotope crisis precipitated by the shutdown of the nuclear reactor at Chalk River, which supplies 40 per cent of the country’s isotopes for nuclear imaging and testing and is a healthy contributor to the world supply. Harper has said he will furnish Ignatieff with a report on the issue.
Harper might claim that 80 per cent of the $22.7 billion committed to infrastructure is committed to projects, but it still doesn’t appear that many cheques have been cut given the complaints of municipal leaders. An election campaign will slow the flow from the spigot to a complete stop. And the deficit will continue to balloon, regardless of what each party leader promises.
Whoever comes to power will simply inherit what the Conservatives have initiated so far, and undoing it with a budget of their own will take too much time to implement to help Canadians. If the Liberals lose and the economy continues to suffer, Harper will simply be able to point across the aisle in the House and label Ignatieff and the rest of the opposition as the reason the government wasn’t there when we needed it.
Ignatieff is asking tough questions, and it’s incumbent on Harper to answer them. Parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page says returning to surplus will require either tax hikes or deep cuts to spending, yet Harper hasn’t told the country how he will bring the country out of deficit. His EI reforms will take months and his answer to the isotope question is to simply stop producing them altogether and let the world hang. And money committed to municipal infrastructure does not mean money actually paid.
All look like good reasons to vote down a government that didn’t even see the recession coming. But no one benefits from sending electors back to the polls for the second time in less than a year. Even if Harper calls his bluff and refuses to answer his questions, Ignatieff would look better backing away from this fight than following his last two predecessors to another whipping at the ballot box.
