Promises made, promises broken

David Crane challenges the opposition parties to hold strong on softwood lumber, pointing out that the Cons are breaking at least two campaign promises with their current stand against Canadian industry:

The Harper government is obviously hoping it can compel Parliament to hold its nose and accept the agreement — even though by doing this the Harper government is breaking an election promise of its own.

In their 2006 election platform, under the heading "a better democracy," the Conservatives promised to "make all votes in Parliament, except the budget and main estimates `free votes' for ordinary Members of Parliament." This would allow MPs to reject the softwood deal but without precipitating an election...

Denying Parliament a free vote is not the only promise the Harper government is breaking. In its election platform it also promised it would "demand that the U.S. government play by the rules on softwood lumber. The U.S. must abide by the NAFTA ruling on softwood lumber, repeal the Byrd amendment, and return the more than $5 billion in illegal softwood lumber tariffs to Canadian producers."

But it has now caved on that promise.

Of course, there was never much doubt that the Cons' ability to shove an agreement down Canadian throats was at best a weak excuse for an election to begin with. But given how plainly the opposition parties can paint the Cons' actions as blatantly breaking the promises the Cons made to win power in the first place, there's all the more reason for them to force Harper to give in (or at least keep searching for other scapegoats) rather than blinking if the issue comes to a vote.