Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion is trying hard to pretend he did not say what he said yesterday:

"I've been saying that every day and you are free to make the headline that you want: that Dion wants an election or Dion doesn't want an election - depends on the day.

"The only thing I want to say is that we will act responsibly and will look at what this budget will do for the Canadian economy, Canadian society."

He did not repeat a phrase he made in Quebec City Monday to the effect the Liberals might let is pass if it didn't appear so bad.

Dion said: "If it's a budget that appears to us as being acceptable or at least not too harmful for the Canadian economy, we could let it pass and avoid a $350 million in (taxpayer) expenses for an election."

Not too harmful?  Let's parse this out.  At first, Stephane Dion demanded that a budget be acceptable.  What does that mean?  He doesn't say.

I suppose that's OK, but some general guidelines would be good.

Stephane Dion could have stopped there.

Stephane Dion should have stopped there.

Instead, he continues, and you know that's going to lead to something that Liberals will regret. 

Stephane Dion lowers the bar!

A budget doesn't have to be acceptable.  He says "or" which means that an unacceptable budget can pass if it satisfies the second condition.  And what is that condition?  If the unacceptable budget is "not too harmful".

Not too harmful is still harmful.

So according to Stephane Dion, if an unacceptable Conservative budget is harmful to Canadians, he'll still let it pass.  Under what conditions?  We can only speculate:

• It harms only certain Canadians who the Liberals don't like.
• It harms so many Canadians that letting the budget stand will help the Liberals gain in popularity.
• The level of harm is undefinable, but the polling numbers are clear, and Stephane Dion is really worried about the harm an election will have on Stephane Dion's future.

Maybe Stephane Dion can help make this clear.  But he won't:

Dion told reporters in Montreal Tuesday he'll wait to see what's in the budget before deciding whether to vote it down. The Liberal leader said earlier this week he might vote for the budget if it wasn't too harmful to Canadians.

Dion refused to go there again today, when asked why he would set the bar so low for the Tory spending plan.

Stephane Dion says he is worried about what is good for Canada.  Actually, he has now said that Canada's good is not really at issue.  He will tolerate bad things happening to Canadians, as long as it prevents a worse thing from happening to Stephane Dion.

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