Not much to add to what the rest of the BT's, and much of the MSM have already said on the Kyoto vote in the House of Commons. As far as the bill itself goes, it's a nonsense. The targets are unreachable and the bill is on a practical level, meaningless. From the political point of view though, it's hard to see the upside of passing this bill for any party, least of all the Liberals. If they should return to power, they'll be saddled with an impossible task of their own making. If they decide to bring down the government over this bill, then they'll have to come up with their own plan, which will either be an economic and electoral suicide note or reveal that they knew the target was unreachable.
Grandstanding and playing politics is not new ground, but this bill is different in my mind in one important respect. It opens up the Government of Canada to lawsuits if they fail to reach an impossible goal. In their zeal to attack the Conservative Party, what the Liberals and other oppostion parties have actually done is to attack Canada. It doesn't matter what political stripe the government of the day is, it's the Government of Canada and therefore the people of Canada who the Liberals have hung out to dry with this bizarre piece of politicking.
On top of this comes Mr. Dion's insistence that he will vote against his own party's anti-terror legislation, and this despite a sizeable revolt brewing in Liberal ranks. Apart from being another anti-Canadian action, this also doesn't make much sense to me from a political perspective. Where's the upside? The only possible explanation is that M. Dion is in some way beholden to some special interest groups either within or outside the Liberal Party. I may be cynical, but I can't help wondering if his very lukewarm condemnation of the anti-Rae pamphlet disgrace at Convention is linked to his very lukewarm stance against terrorism. Who's pulling M. Dion's strings on the issue of national security, and what does it mean for the future of Canada?
Add to this the sudden Messianic appearance of Michael Ignatieff this week, playing Liberal leader in all but name, and the politics of the Liberal party appear to be riding some kind of weird roller coaster. Margaret Thatcher once described a political opponent as suffering 'that basic incoherence which is the undoing of all who eschew principle in politics'. To my mind, that suits M. Dion perfectly, and even his friends in the media are starting to see it. It's bad enough having someone like this lead what is supposed to be Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. Dion as Prime Minister would be the worst nightmare this country has seen for many years.
