40th Parliament, take two

So here we go again ... after the first session lasted just thirteen days before Stephen Harper pulled the plug, we begin the second session today with a budget to immediately follow tomorrow. And this time we pretty much know all the details. Hard to believe it's been twenty years since 1989 when reporter Doug Small caused a storm by obtaining a copy of the budget the night before and read it on the evening news. Now, it's as if a budget leak isn't that big of a deal.

Actually it is, since it gives people a chance to profit from possible tax or loan guarantee changes before they are actually made. It's like someone benefitting from insider information except it's available for all to see -- but only usable by those who can afford to rearrange their financial situation.

But that's not the problem. Just three months or so after the election, the Conservatives have already run out of ideas, and what they're going to "officially" propose tomorrow probably won't help all that much. A billion here, a billion there, a few tax cuts but all in all just as disorganized and pointless as the bailout Dubya got through Congress around the same time and for what?

Ignatieff had better have a good reason for withholding a vote on the ways and means when the budget does come up for a vote. It can't be a weak-kneed reason like Dion kept coming up with which was about election readiness (and we all know how that panned out). A free pass has to be earned, not just given for grants' sake. Frankly at this point it's like Harper really doesn't care anymore how long he stays in power or how. He just wants the free residence and plane that comes with the job. He doesn't get it on the economy, on the environment or on human rights.

And that's not a leader. If Canadians voted the way they did because they wanted a change in the style of leadership, they got what they asked for. Besides which ... well, the way he smiles. He totally lost my trust the first time he released a picture of himself smiling. It looked contrived like something you see of the pics of the officers of a corporation in an annual report, not casually smiling like he's one of the people. Because he isn't, he's the boy of Big Oil.

That doesn't mean he's a bad man. But his connections with groups that promote policies contrary to the greater good makes him untrustworthy. Sure, the other leaders have that issue too to some degrees, but for him it's writ large.

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