On responses

As I noted last week, the Cons' strategy for now looks to be to announce as many sectoral giveaways as they can in hopes that the actors involved will in turn put pressure on Michael Ignatieff to pass the budget. Let's follow up by noting that Jack Layton's response on CBC this morning offers an effective means of muting that message: rather than critiquing the Cons' spending announcements, Layton suggested that the measures made public so far are entirely consistent with NDP principles, and even mentioned the possibility of including some of the Cons' measures in a coalition budget.

Which seems like a tidy way to shift the discussion from the Cons' specific announcements to a broad comparison as to who's best suited to manage a stimulus package. But there may still be room to develop another theme on the latter point.

So far, the main message put forward by the opposition has been to the effect that the Cons can't be trusted to effectively administer spending which runs counter to their ideology. And that's certainly an idea worth emphasizing. But it's worth taking a hint from this month's developments south of the border as well.

After all, Barack Obama has announced not only an oversight board dedicated to handling stimulus spending, but also a plan to make audits and reports publicly available.

In contrast, the Cons' announcements to date have consisted solely of pools of money without so much as an indication of expected results, let alone any substantive oversight mechanisms. And the Harper government seems to be in far too much of a hurry to take credit for shovelling money out of the public purse to change that focus anytime soon.

As a result, the door is wide open for the opposition to mirror Obama's message and focus on the need for increased accountability to ensure that a stimulus plan actually works. And given the potential benefits from presenting a second main reason why Deficit Jim and Recession Stephen shouldn't be left in charge which will play well with some of the Cons' core supporters, it'll be a disappointment if they don't take the opportunity.