Uncooperative

It's been laughable enough to see the Cons' attempt to paint themselves as willing to work with the opposition parties taken as fact by media and Libs alike in the absence of any real evidence that the Harper government plans to do anything but resume strongarming the Libs into submission. But Ted Menzies' latest should put any doubt to rest:

The Conservative government will not agree to any more budget amendments but it's keeping its options open to inject more stimuli later this year.

"In this budget we're not going to accept any amendments and why should we," said MP Ted Menzies, parliamentary secretary to the minister of finance.

Now, the obvious answer is that the Cons have just unveiled a 551-page monster of a budget bill which is laden with problematic content - some of which was at best hinted at in the Cons' budget motion, and some of which is completely new.

But Menzies has given notice the Cons won't even consider the idea that a single provision in their mammoth budget bill should be subject to review or negotiation. Which would seem to be as strong an indication as possible that the Cons are back to their usual shove-it-down-their-throat style of government - leaving only the question of whether the Libs will once again be happy to play along.