When 40% of the Liberal caucus skips work on the most important day of work in Parliament, it begs the question, how were they chosen? Was it done on a volunteer basis, or was it done with an iron whip? Furthermore, what do you think these MPs were doing while the most important piece of legislation of the year was being voted on? Were they plotting Ignatieff's overthrow while Mike was voting on the budget? Did they go singing at a parade followed by a Cubs game? I would suggest an early parade to happy hour, but John McCallum's presence at the vote negates that scenario.
I would like to collect some ideas, both serious and humorous for two polls that I would like to launch this evening.
1) How were all these "Ferris Buellers" chosen?
2) What did they do for their day off?
I asked Kady O'Malley how they were selected, and she tweeted me back:
kady @pragmatictory i asked a staffer that earlier; i think it was pretty informal - voting is sort of the opposite of negative option billing.
Justin Trudeau skipped the vote, so a spin the bottle tournament may have decided it.
ReplyDeleteLet's be fair, he probably just addressed caucus and said "who likes the budget?"
ReplyDelete40% of his caucus stood up, and got the afternoon off work.
I haven't take a close look at the abstainers ... but it could be that some of those MPs (eg the Montrealers) don't face a strong threat to re-election from a Dipper candidate.
ReplyDeleteMy point is that, at the next campaign, Dipper rhetoric is going to be along the lines of: "We are the real, effective oppostion ... that Lib MP over there who is my opponent, didn't even bother to show up and vote on the budget !
Calgary Junkie
Maybe I'll dust off my election matrix and check for a pattern. Compare the margin of victories of the abstainers versus the voters, even break it down regionally. See if there is any statistical significance. All the voters who voted for these people were provided a diservice.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it was the "If you like Pina Colada's and getting caught in the rain" (snow) crowd?
ReplyDeleteAfter all, what else makes sense? It's the complete tapestry of madness with a few exceptions of course.
BTW, I haven't voted yet, I'm so baffled.....
CJ,
ReplyDeleteJustin Trudeau? His lead wasn't that solid. Interesting arrogance though, I'm in!
We had the Silence of Liberals. These lambs knew if they voted against the budget Harper would have won his majority.
ReplyDeleteDon't go holding your breath waiting for the media propagangsters to get to the bottom of it.
ReplyDeleteThose lazy twits still haven't even begun to look in to see which ding bats installed Count Iffy in his position.
It’s probably because it was the buffoons who sign their cheque. Birds of a feather you know!
Half their Montreal caucus skipped work, and of the Montreal abstainers, the average share of the popular vote was 50%.
ReplyDeleteI guess Montreal did not want to participate in the federal budget.
Now this IS making sense!
ReplyDeleteSecure seats...or so THEY think!
17% of the abstainers defeated their local Tory by less than 10% popular vote. 32% of non-abstainers had a local Tory within 10%. Although there were some abstainers who only very narrowly defeated their local Tory, like Keith Martin, Andrew Kania, Ruby Dhalla, and Brian Murphy. None of the abstainers had a close race with the NDP, with 83% of abstainers defeating their NDP counterpart by at least 20% popular vote. Every single Liberal MP with a close race against the NDP showed up to the budget vote.
ReplyDeleteNow, if I were the PM I would have done a quick pre-count of libbies. I could count our vote win was by 10 votes so at the last minute, send 11 of our people scurrying up the isles to the doors just as the vote began.
ReplyDeleteThats the way I see it anyhow, but maybe I ain't that bright in any case. Bingo, an election and majority.
Do you know how many people voted for the 29 abstainers? 496,720 nearly half a million voters. Liberal democracy hypocrisy.
ReplyDeleteWay to go Iceman, I still can't vote for anything other than you can always find Liberals that don't want to work..... and I thought there was a strategy...how dumb?
ReplyDeleteSo now, are we looking at Liberals that are willing to run as a "coalition' with the NDP? There is definately a pattern, what is it?
ReplyDeleteStrong Dippers?
Gays bars,"progressive" hangouts,anti-American and anti-Jewish establishments,or the washrooms of union halls would have been a great place to start seeing how every leftist in Canada fits into one of those "groups". Canada is a nation of "UNIONS".
ReplyDeleteMe thinks, the libs being kiddos compared to us, they played a game called "eeny meeny miny moe... you are out"
ReplyDeleteMakes sense ?