Standing for nothing

Warren Kinsella continues the Libs' pattern of projection:

By way of conclusion, we would only echo that old adage: if you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.

So after rolling over on 79 consecutive confidence votes, what are the Libs doing to demonstrate their strong beliefs which are supposed to keep them from naively falling for anything?

Answers to policy specifics are difficult to come by at the moment. With the party directing their attention to the summer "working group" on Employment Insurance — the line they drew in the sand and a likely election trigger come September — a lot of other policy issues have been sidelined.

Add to this the fact that some Liberal MPs appear to be shrinking from the media this summer. The Liberal communications apparatus is directing journalists to address policy questions to Liberal MPs in their shadow cabinet — but many of those MPs are travelling or on vacation over the summer and not doing media interviews.

"We're being very strategic in the sense that there are certain issues we've come out on — for example on early learning/childcare, and high speed rail," MP Bains says. "The other issues — we will see when we want to communicate those. It could be just before a campaign, during a campaign... it's more of a strategic decision. Right now, it's still a work in progress and we're still consulting the party, stakeholders and Canadians, and the ideas that we do have, that we feel comfortable with right now, we've decided to hold off and communicate those at a later date."