Comment 28589

By mwoods (anonymous) | Posted February 11, 2009 at 08:09:25

There are more useful things in this budget than I would have expected from Harper, given his past performance. However, the budget is unfocussed and has a number of obvious holes and its ultimate impact is questionable. The implementation will also be important.

While one can think of things which would be obvious improvements (such as EI eligibility) it would be essentially impossible for an opposition party to get in there and try to revamp this budget to an overall better budget they could have confidence in. Even trying to do some minor fixes comes at the risk of triggering an election if Harper doesn't agree (and provided he could pin the election trigger on the opposition, it seems almost certain he would win the election). It also comes at the risk of tying the budget to the opposition, a budget which even with a few changes, would be one they can't have good confidence in.

I think both Ignatieff and Layton are trying to strengthen support for their own parties, but I think Ignatieff's budget response is more in tune with Canadians right now, who largely would like to see government work for a while, if at all possible.

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