What Do We Think Of This? (Remember the Coalition?)

"PSAC fears centre on what union officials call “three poison bills” within the Budget Implementation Act, including clauses that they claim will cut wages, deny pay equity and complicate the employment insurance process.(...)The New Democrats and Bloc Quebecois tried to get the Tories to drop the offending clauses from the budget bill during recent parliamentary committee hearings.But when it got down to a vote the Liberals abstained, not wanting to make it a confidence issue.“At the end of the day our leader has made the decision that we're going to let this budget pass because people don't want to have an election,” said Dartmouth MP Mike Savage, who came out of the hotel briefly to meet some of the demonstrators."

Really? I thought if the government was defeated on a confidence vote within six months of an election, the GG would ask the Official Opposition if they could form a government/maintain the confidence of the House. I seem to faintly recall, ages ago now (two months), some brouhaha over this very possibility. Some Dion fellow was going to do just that or something, and then party insiders kicked him out and installed their chosen one, without election or anything because of the urgency of the times...or something like that.

In other news, Eurasia & Oceania have always been enemies.