Puzzling: The Bloc Quebecois and the NDP Questions

Everyone talkin’ spring election. Most had predicted it long before Iggy even said that he would more than likely not vote for it unless that F35 purchase and corporate tax cuts were removed.  The Liberals had also said they would like to see something in there for Family home care.  Things not likely to happen and Iggy probably knows it;  Stevie Spiteful has said as much.

Most had been predicting a draconian austerity budget, much like what we’re seeing in the EU countries these days, despite  Jimbo and Stevie’s assurances it won’t be. We’ll see. 

Certain pundits and columnists were calling for Stevie to call an election sooner, rather than later. I believe Kelly McParland had said not even a month ago that the ‘stars were aligning themselves’ for ol’ Stevie and an election would be best sooner rather than later for ol’ Stevie, and McParland gave some pretty good reasons why. 

Most of the end of year polls have Stevie teetering in majority territory.  Hell, Nik Nanos even said that it was possible for Stevie to pull it off without Quebec, using that ‘cluster’ strategy for various ridings.

Indeed.  Ol’ Stevie’s in a position of strength while the Liberals are down in the polls and are probably still smarting from that by-election loss in Vaughan.  Despite that, Iggy says he’s ‘ready for an election’  and that  certain conditions must be met in order for he and his party to support the budget.  One would think that Stevie must be thinking Santa was good to him this year.  Hell, he can have Jimbo be as austere as he likes; throw in some poison pills for good measure.   not even that 2.2 billion dollars in HST reimbursements to Quebec; especially not that if he doesn’t need Quebec to get a majority as Nik Nanos says. He could afford to tell all 3 opposition parties to basically fuck themselves, no?

So, why is Stevie Spiteful all of a sudden appearing gun shy?  Why is is so important for him to not go to the polls sooner rather than later if the stars are all aligned in his favour, as McParland puts it?

More to the point, why is he going to the NDP instead of to the Bloc Quebecois with that 2.2 billion dollar HST carrot?  One would think that what ever the NDP may demand on this upcoming budget would be far more expensive and/or far more trouble than that HST reimbursement. Hell,  an arena wouldn’t even be necessary.

True, that Gilles Duceppe would probably want an election sooner rather than later, given his polling numbers in Quebec are higher than they were in 2008, thus, like Stevie Spiteful, would benefit from a speedy election date.  Furthermore, without the arena in play,  the populist mayor of Quebec and the city’s answer to Danny Williams, Regis Labeaume would surely campaign to make sure that the Harpercon seats in the Quebec City area would be lost. If successful, those seats would go to the Bloc.  While Nik Nanos said Stevie didn’t need Quebec to get a majority, I believe it also meant that this was contingent upon him keeping all or at least most of his Quebec seats.

Another thing is that Duceppe would want to have an election done before  he leaves the Bloc for a crack at leading the Parti-Quebecois.

Still, if Stevie offered that  HST reimbursement, Duceppe would be a fool to say no. It would be political suicide as it were.  So, how hard of a sell would that offer be for Stevie to Duceppe? Especially if the purchase of those F35 are actually in that budget, given that Duceppe voted with the Harpercons for it because it promised jobs in Quebec.

It begs the question, why go straight to the NDP for help without stopping first with the Bloc? Stevie only needs one party to float his budget.  

New budget measures to help low-income seniors and the unemployed are shaping up as potential “common ground” between Conservatives and New Democrats as the Harper government looks for the votes it needs to survive the next budget.

Really? Last I checked, Stevie spiteful doesn’t care about the unemployed (  “In terms of the unemployed, of which we have over a million-and-a-half, don’t feel particularly bad for many of these people.), or seniors (remember that bill now shelved, they wanted to pass that would further impoverish them?).  Those items I mentioned in brackets don’t sound very progressive to me.   Leopards, particularly Harper leopards don’t change their spots.  But I digress…

 The NDP voted with the Liberals to stop the F35 purchase, so perhaps that won’t even be in the budget if the NDP are still at the table with Jimbo and Stevie.

Here’s what I find more intriguing though; no, make that a tad surprising: NDP, softening its’ stance on corporate tax cuts??

Yet the NDP’s hints of support come with a major caveat that would be a hard swallow for a government that prides itself on lowering corporate taxes: Mr. Mulcair said the NDP wants future corporate cuts to be more targeted to ensure companies are investing in jobs and productivity.

I seem to remember Jack Layton sharing the Liberals’ view this time last year that corporate tax cuts need to be scrapped.  Not that politicians can’t change their minds.  Constituencies change; so do various situations. However,  isn’t scrapping corporate tax cuts supposed to be more of an NDP type of thing to aspire to?  Honestly, I don’t see how Stevie or Jimbo would  agree to setting conditions for corporations to have tax cuts; neither are for corporate regulations for openers and even if they had the will, one would think it would be difficult to enforce.

I always thought the NDP would adapt that “Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose” kinda attitude regarding the upcoming Harpercon budget; that an election wouldn’t really take much skin off their noses.  In fact, if anything, I thought they were confident they could wrestle a lot more seats away from the Liberals. What gives?  And don’t give me by-partisan cooperation; they chided the Liberals for it in the past. 

Is this nothing more than Stevie and his puppets dazzling the electorate feigning cooperation with the NDP just to make it look like they’re not looking for an election; that if there was one, point at the Liberals?  It’s a game the NDP isn’t above playing neither. 

As for the Bloc, they too,  have their own games as any political party does; games that they would play with Stevie to their advantage,  but pretending to not want an election sooner doesn’t play in their interests, particularly if Duceppe wants to lead the Parti-Quebecois.

I remembered when I first heard Iggy saying he was ready for an election, wondering if he knew something we didn’t know or if he smoking the good stuff.   Maybe he really does know something the rest of us don’t.