Equitable considerations

One of the more interesting surprises in the Cons' budget was their decision to keep attacking pay equity even after that was one of the main points of dispute in their fall fiscal update. So let's take a look at a couple of reasons why they might have kept such a contentious piece in what was supposed to be a conciliatory budget.

The first obvious possibility is that the Cons may have figured that the Libs would prefer amending the budget to voting it down. Under those circumstances, the continued attack on pay equity would be ripe for amendment - which could allow the Libs to claim some victory, and in turn allow the Cons to claim to have been cooperative by conceding that amendment.

But it might well be instead that the Cons have no intention of allowing their limitations on pay equity to be amended out of the budget due to the political advantage they could gain by leaving them in.

Keep in mind that Harper and company are already trying to rewrite history to claim that their position on stimulus hasn't changed from last fall, even though their fall update (a) failed to recognize that any was necessary and (b) didn't plan for a budget to reevaluate that position until March or April. Which seems very much intended to publicly undermine the main rationale for the formation of the democratic coalition.

For the Libs, the next-strongest argument why the fall showdown might have been justified was Deficit Jim's plan to hack away at pay equity. But if they now throw their support behind a budget which pushes forward with the same measure, then it'll be impossible for them to make any reasonable argument that pay equity was ever an inviolable principle.

That would leave the Cons with a slam-dunk message that the only time the Libs have opposed them was to preserve their own funding. And the combination of a Con base fired up by that theme and a Lib party demoralized by propping up the Cons likely represents Harper's best hope to make a final push into majority territory.