Welcome to Weaseldom

Watching today's exchange in the House of Commons a number of new adjectives as well as questions flowed from my quickly analyzing grey matter.

The first question, came not from me but from my trusty sidekick, Mr. Y. Mr. Y wants to know why ill members of the house don't have a proxy sitting in for them? This would make sense so there is no question of abuse of numbers in the vote due to illness. Is this an option? =8uSurely they would be allowed to vote via video conferencing.

Second, a caller into CPAC suggested looking at the length of time some Liberals came into power in 1985 with next week's May 19 'scheduled budget vote date'. She claims that "a rump of Liberals" are waiting for this date because enough time will have lapsed that they will get their pensions as they know the government will fall anyway and they want to secure them.

Thirdly, is poor Jack Layton believing the Liberals in that hazy eyed gaze of an unrequited love affair? He wanted to know if the Liberal government was going to ad the corporate tax changes to the budget by next week in time for the vote. Ralph Goodale tells the House that the corporate tax change amendment will "get it's own bill" but it didn't sound like it would make the May 19th deadline. Jacko is naive enough to believe the marquis has his name on it and he'll be walking down the aisle with Ralphie arm through arm into a bleary eyed dream of budget bliss.

Yet in his denial Jack dismisses the signs of a player in the "we'll see, we'll see" of Jean Lapierre when asked if next week's budget will include the NDP's amendment. If I didn't date enough players in my life, I wouldn't have picked out the obvious.

Now the last is an observation not a question. Canadians (all of us?) have expressed concern about voting in the summer. Ah. . . c'est domage. Of course I'm so shallow and superficial that I always put my acme fishing rod and jet propelled barbeque before 15 minutes of civic duty to put an 'X' in a box. I guess that Parliament being adjourned in the summer when no work gets done in the House anyway wouldn't make sense to someone like me. I would prefer to blister in the sun and duck seagull poop than to have my House of Commons working in the fall than on a campaign trail.

AND the obvious obvious, the Liberals are sure that the NDP will vote with them on a budget vote but not on a no confidence motion. This is why they don't want a confidence vote in the House because they know they are going to lose it. The NDP have already stated that they would not support the Liberals on a confidence issue with respect to corruption. Are the Liberals sure they will get the support of the NDP next week in a budget vote that most likely won't take place on Thursday anyway?

Heh...but what do I know about Ratscals?