Speech From The Throne

There it is, Michaelle Jean, Canada's Governor-General has delivered the most brief of all possible speeches, an incidental introduction, a frontispiece to the Conservative budget to be unveiled tomorrow afternoon. The speech has been parsed by pundits just as the budget will be, and no one has yet mentioned its last line, a reference to the Almighty.

"Honourable members of the Senate, members of the House of Commons: As you unite in common effort and in common cause, may Divine Providence be your guide and inspiration."

This is as it should be, reflecting Canada's Christian-majority heritage, despite the official separation of Church and State. Yet, it will not be Divine Providence that will guide and inspire the Leader of the Opposition and the surly leader of the NDP, but a partisanship and bitterness as deep and sharp as that they attribute to the current prime minister, Stephen Harper.

This is decidedly not as it should be. If indeed Canada is facing a dire economic slump as the pundits, the financial community, the news media and the parliamentary opposition claims, then would it not make eminently good sense, should Canadians not expect, that all our political parties put aside their selfish partisan jibes and thrusts and work together to pull a practical and purposeful plan to action?

Obviously, not to be. Maturity keeps eluding our feisty parliamentarians with such short memories they handily forget what the electorate put them into office for. The surly insistence of the leader of the NDP that his party has no intention of voting for the Budget, sight unseen; regardless of what it contains speaks volumes of his anxious ambition set in further bitter abeyance.

He speaks the royal "we"; that "we" have lost trust in the Conservatives. As though Canadians have invested in him the authority to speak for all of us. He must learn to restrain himself, to speak only for his own ambition, sad-sack Jack Layton. Fact is a recent poll appears to establish that 44% of Canadians feel Stephen Harper is their first choice to lead Canada out of its recession.

And while Jack Layton speaks so censoriously of Stephen Harper's "my way or the highway", as he so eloquently puts it, it is Mr. Layton's refusal to contemplate or consider the line items in the upcoming Budget already released for public awareness that marks him as the intransigent one, refusing to support a financial paper that promises to give weight to all those areas of need he espouses himself.

As for the saviour of the Liberal Party of Canada, his sneeringly facile barbs at the trustworthiness and humanity of the prime minister is less an issue of cerebral acuity for one celebrated as an intellectual, than spuriously feeble bites reminiscent of partisan spite, a condition which he has so lavishly attributed to Stephen Harper. He holds no monopoly on wishing to govern well and wisely, and acceding to the needs of the vulnerable within this society.

Mr. Ignatieff's excessively coy treatment of his responsibility with respect to the Budget is rather pitifully transparent. As a break from tradition - matching, one supposes, that of the Harper government audaciously revealing tidbits from the Budget - Mr. Ignatieff insists on the need to closely parse that document before committing to its support. A thinly veiled manipulation of the process to create an aura of suspense and control.

That he will not rush into rashly supporting the document is understandable, given the lesson of previous Liberal leader Stephane Dion's railing against government initiatives while supporting them when put to the test. His humiliations will not be visited upon Mr. Ignatieff. He's in control. In reality, political caution bespeaks the better part of valour expressed.

And caution influences action. Sit tight, await opportunity. And that time is not just yet. Not while the sitting government faces a perceived economic emergency that may not be ameliorated on the near horizon. Let them stew, while the Liberals continue to re-build their base, treasury and support, then step in to rescue the country when it's on the cusp of recovery.

All the while excoriating the Conservatives for leaving an unprincipled mess for generations to come to contend with. Oh, and of course, it has been the Liberal prodding that the government act swiftly, decisively, and generously impacting the bottom line to produce a whopping deficit that will enable them later to scorn the action that government took.

Meanwhile, Mr. Ignatieff indulges in the theatrics of labelling the prime minister untrustworthy, changing tactics, abandoning earlier stances to accept other, alternate ones reflective of a changed global fiscal environment. The classic example of the pot calling the kettle black; Ignatieff has changed his positions on so many issues, it ill behooves him to mock Stephen Harper.

But this is only the prelude. Wait for tomorrow. Ah, the suspense of it all.