The reviews are in: Dion Part Deux edition

CuriosityCat:

Canadians who lose their jobs because the stimulus package did not cover the items set out in the Accord, or amount to the proper sum (at least 2% of GDP for now), should blame not only Harper when they lose their jobs, their homes and their livelihoods, but more particularly, each and every Liberal MP, and vote accordingly at the next election.

Because the Liberal MPs had a choice.

They could have voted to install a progressive centre government, with a more realistic stimulus program.

Instead, they supported Harper...

At a time when courage was called for, the Liberals offered cowardice.

In Canada, ‘Yes we can’ has become ‘No, we dare not.’ What a sad day for Canada.

Chet Scoville:

After all the trouble of replacing Dion with Ignatieff, here we go again...Yeah, yeah. Seen it, taped it, taped over it already.

The Disaffected Lib:

Let's get this straight. The interim leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, our nation's Official Opposition, is content to allow Canada in the face of this fiscal emergency to wallow haplessly under the weight of Harper's visionless bailout budget. If Ignatieff supports this budget, that's exactly what he has done.

If Ignatieff supports Harper on this one, he'll chalk up one more odious similarity to our Furious Leader - he'll put his personal political fortunes ahead of the interests of Canada.

L-girl at We Move To Canada:

These goddamn Liberals. They get to act tough, showcase Ignatieff's tough-talking leadership, and then defeat the Government and have an election when they're good and ready, and when they feel Canadians are amenable to it.

And we're stuck with this bullshit Government and their unfocused, grab-bag budget that does more for wealthy folks remodelling their kitchens than working people thrown out of work and barely hanging on...

I fucking hate the Liberals. I don't know how any Canadian who considers themselves progressive can vote for them.

Stageleft:

The budget falls short, but we’re gonna support it, and require reports, and then watch them like hawks, and if it doesn’t work the way we think it should we’ll bring them down — I think Dion wrote his text for him.

Saskboy:

Same ol’ Liberals. Pretty sad day for the country. Iggy is going to let Harper fall even further onto his face, and take the rest of us down with him while he wastes Billions of dollars in the process.

James Curran:

NO changes to the policies contained in the budget? NO CHANGES to the EI in the Liberal amendments? NO CHANGES to the housing clauses? NO CHANGES to help with day care and people on Social Assistance? What about green renovations instead of all renovations including your cottage?

WTF??? UNBELIEVABLE!!!

WHAT IS THE LIBERAL ALTERNATIVE PLAN? WHAT IS IT?

Updates:

catnip:

Throwing financial crumbs out to a starving public is no way to ensure a solid, timely recovery but that apparently doesn't bother the Liberal party enough to bring down this government. It's politics first. What else is new?

Beijing York:

At least Dion looked pained and embarrassed every time he rolled over and let Harper piss on him. Ignatieff can't wipe off that smug expression as he "swallows hard".

Still more updates...

Andrew P:

Iggy needed to put policy over politics for the good of the country. His failure do so has convinced me where his loyalties lay, and they aren’t in the order I hoped. There’s an old saying in Ottawa - I know it’s in Toronto, probably in Ottawa - that says, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me - you can’t get fooled again. Well sir, I won’t be fooled again.

James Laxer:

Rule number one in politics: you can’t have it every which way. If you vote for the Conservative budget, it becomes your budget Mr. Ignatieff, no matter what font the government uses to print its reports for you...

Having decided “not to be” as a serious opponent of the Harper government, Michael Ignatieff could consider a career on the stage.

Meanwhile, Jack Layton has become the real leader of the opposition. He showed courage when he reached out to the Liberals to form a progressive coalition that could provide Canadians with the leadership they need to cope with the economic crisis. He tried the option of working with the Liberals. Michael Ignatieff has walked away from that option. Layton has retained his integrity and his clear understanding of what the country needs. Progressives now have one party and one party only available to them: the NDP.

More Disaffected Lib:

No matter which way he squirms and spins, Michael Ignatieff is going to be saddled with this decision and it's going to come back to haunt him for years.

We won't support a budget that contains tax cuts! Remember that? It sounds an awful lot like Stephane Dion saying the Liberals would never, ever, positively not ever support an extension of the Afghanistan mission past 2009.

Yet another update...

Mentarch:

Words fail me ... because I am too pissed off.

More Chet Scoville:

The amendment, instead, is simply to require the government to make a claim to Parliament every few months saying, yes, we really are executing the flawed budget that we said we'd execute, and keeping the unfocused promises we said we'd keep. In other words, it demands nothing from the government, because accountability to Parliament is already an inherent part of a parliamentary system. Ignatieff is attempting to legislate something that's already there anyway by constitutional convention. All he's adding is a timetable, which, frankly, doesn't amount to much.

I don't expect much from Harper and company. They're not good at this governing business, and never have been from day one. I was hoping for better from Ignatieff's Liberals.

Miranda Hussey:

Despite all the problems with the budget and the rumors that the Liberals would ask for amendments with substance Iggy is only asking for some sort of checkpoint where the Conservatives have to provide quarterly reports on implementation. Given Flaherty's past history of creative accounting, and that fact that every economic projection that this government has put forward disagrees with all the experts this is a laughable as the only condition to put forward in order for the budget to get Liberal support.

I covered in my post this morning some of the things that I had major problems with and thought needed to be amended, yet all of them are being let slide in favour of quarterly reports. Might as well just give them a cart blanche for all the supposed teeth that amendment has.

One last update: See more at We Move to Canada.