The children were back in school, Monday — sorry, Question Period returned to Parliament Hill on Monday with accusations that the governing Tories are in cahoots with the socialists.
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff ridiculed Prime Minister Stephen Harper for putting forward employment insurance reforms that drew cautious praise from NDP Leader Jack Layton.
“The problem of instability is you!” Mr. Ignatieff thundered, accusing the Conservatives of a “new-found love of socialism.” Mr. Harper, in response, maintained that “Canadians do not want an election,” something the Liberals are determined to provoke, rather than permit the government to continue down its path. Of course, some Tories think an election wouldn’t be a bad thing, given the government’s growing support in the polls. But you’ll never catch the Prime Minister saying such a thing.
On employment insurance, at least, the NDP seemed determined to make the Liberals the scapegoat. While Mr. Layton pouted over Mr. Harper’s fondness for “insulting people and calling people names,” deputy leader Thomas Mulcair focused on the need for the Conservatives to continue with EI reforms, “to compensate for the problem created by the Liberals.”
Meanwhile, the Bloc Quebecois went on about some controversy over land in front of the National Assembly and fresh humiliations about Quebec’s inability to have an independent voice in climate-change negotiations.
And Liberal MP Bob Rae wanted to know why the Harper government wasn’t intervening in the debate over health care in the United States to defend the Canadian system against attack from “right wing forces.”
The Prime Minister reasonably replied that “we intend to let the United States make its own decisions on domestic debates,” before snarkily telling the former NDP Ontario premier that the Canadian health care system had already survived an attack by “left-wing incompetents in Ontario.”
