Angry in the Great White North

A meme seems to have developed in which people ideologically opposed to the Conservatives believe that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government is going to ignore the opposition. No amendments to any bills!

The reasons mean that the Liberal Party is now on the run, chased by a relentless Harper. Evidence? As soon as Harper heard Dion, he said that the Omnibus Bill on criminal law changes was now a matter of confidence. Not one amendment would be accepted.

Where does that leave the Liberals?

Between a rock and a hard place, hoisted on their own petard!

In facing this bill - and believe me there will be countless others - the Liberal Party must now choose only one of two courses of action, having pledged not to use the third (voting against the government on confidence matters and forcing an early election).

What nonsense!

Here is what is really happening with the Tackling Violent Crime Act, according to CTV:

"The bills that are included as part of this comprehensive package [the Tackling Violent Crime Act] are as amended by the House of Commons," said [Justice Minister Rob Nicholson].

CTV's chief political correspondent Craig Oliver said the fact that the amendments remain is significant.

"These bills were amended by agreement between the government and the opposition before the House prorogued and they died on the order paper, so the government is bringing them back," said Oliver.

"Reporters were under the impression that the government was scrapping the amendments to the justice legislation which would have been a slap in the face to the opposition parties and would have, in effect, invited them to defeat these bills."

Nicholson said the Conservatives would not bow to any substantial amendments from the opposition.

So the constituent bills that now make up the omnibus bill were each amended in agreement with the opposition parties, and the amendments are still in the new omnibus bill.

What the Conservatives are saying is enough is enough, this bill is as good as it's going to get, you've got many of the changes you wanted incorporated into it, so now vote on it or fight an election over it.

Now this is a lot different from the way the CBC is reporting on the introduction of the Tacking Violent Crime Act:

The Conservatives introduced their new tough-on-crime legislation in the House of Commons on Thursday, a move that is expected to put the Liberal party in a tight spot once again.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Wednesday he will not allow opposition parties to make any amendments to the bill, which he will declare a matter of confidence.

If the bill doesn't pass, Harper's minority government will fall and an election will be called.

There will likely be items in the bill difficult for the Liberals to accept, but Liberal Leader Stephane Dion has said he wants to avoid an election, which means his party may have to support the bill.

No mention that this already the amended bill. That's a major oversight, and until the CBC and others get this part right, Liberal bloggers like Curiousity Cat are going to continue to sound confused and ill-informed.

The tragedy here is for Stephane Dion. Desperate to avoid an election, the Liberals could support this bill. They've already amended it. They can complain it isn't perfect, but then they did the best they could as an opposition party to fix the original bill up. But it might be too late for that. The idea that this is the original Conservative bill with no Liberal input seems to have taken hold, which means that if Stephane Dion leads his Liberal caucus to support the bill, Dion will be denounced as weak.

At least in this particular situation, that wouldn't be fair to Stephane Dion.