Will Liberals Show Up To Work?

With his announcement that the Liberal Party will vote against the budget, but not in significant number to defeat the legislation; Ignatieff must now instruct roughly 10 of his MPs to abstain from voting on the most important piece of legislation of the year. The budget has a greater direct impact on the lives of Canadians than any other bill on any other matter. The reason all budgets are election triggering confidence votes is because if the legislation is not passed, the Government can't function.

When I vote for an individual to represent me in the legislature, you can bet your ass that I expect them to cast a vote on the year's most important ballot. If it is good for me, I would like my representative to vote yes, and if it's bad for me I would like them to vote no. Abstaining is not an option. Stephane Dion already tried this strategy and it didn't work. I understand why they do it, because it's hard to complain about something they voted for. They want to retain the ability to complain about the budget, but in doing so they are exposing Canadians to something the Liberals are saying is bad for Canadians.

One could even make the claim that abstaining from what you believe to be a toxic budget vote is a form of Parliamentary depraved indifference. The Liberals are saying that this budget will have a strong negative impact on the lives of Canadians, but that they will not attempt to defeat the legislation despite having sufficient votes to do so. If you think prorogation erodes democracy, how can you support abstaining from legislation you are saying will harm your constituents?

It is nice to see that the grassroots Canadians Against Liberals Not Doing Their Jobs Facebook group, affectionately known as CALNDTJ is flourishing with 37 members in its first 24 hours. This is what dreams are made of. Regular people frustrated that the Opposition refuses to do their jobs. I have been "Tweeting" for 3 months and I have 20 Twitter followers. 37 in less than a day is astounding! There was one post on the site that I particularly liked.

"How big does this group have to grow before we can start chopping it down into regional chapters? Then we can start interfacing our Facebooks into our blackberries to invite each other to Liberal public speaking events to give the impression that flash mobs of spontaneous protests are magically popping up everywhere the Liberals speak. Then we can even start hosting our own public rallies and we can get the CBC to advertise relentlessly days in advance where the rallies will be, luring people with the promise of being on TV. Then when dozens of partisans show up, we can claim that there is a grassroots movement of people angry at the Liberal Party. That's how this works."