Your quick answer on whether there will be an election: No. Of course not. Next question?
Okay, then, here it is: Why exactly is anyone surprised that the Liberals won't bring down the government over its progress report?
That one's a little trickier. I'm as frustrated as the next guy with Michael Ignatieff's reluctance to lay out anything resembling an alternative vision for the country. But why would he be expected to demand a different stimulus approach, when his party not only endorsed the current one, but largely initiated it?
The only credible grounds for the Liberals to bring down the government at this moment would be over money not getting out the door fast enough. But does anyone seriously believe that the Conservatives aren't trying to spend it just as quickly as they can?
Only this week, John Baird was freaking out at David Miller because the Toronto Mayor wants the cash to flow too slowly. The government's frustration at having to jump through too many hoops may well have contributed to Kevin Lynch's departure as clerk of the privy council last month. If anything, the government might be moving too quickly, with too few safeguards - but if the Liberals have any evidence on that front, they've not presented it.
The best argument against the government's spending habits is that they're too unfocused and too short-term. But if the Liberals didn't have a problem with that in January, why would they now?
If Ignatieff wants to put distance between himself and the government, it will have to be on what happens next - how we get out of deficit, how we make more concerted efforts to modernize the economy, and so on. His opportunity to credibly pass judgment on what's happening now has long since passed.
Whether the Conservatives are providing good government is highly debatable. But they've lived up to their modest terms of probation.
