The Absent Opposition Departs Again

Most of the public focus on Parliament over the last week has rightly been on the issue of the Cons' continued attempts to avoid accountability for their actions when it comes to Afghan detainees - and there's plenty of reason for concern about the Libs' willingness to give the Harper government a way out on that point. But another highly significant example of the Libs abdicating their role as official opposition looks to have been lost in the shuffle - even as it generated no lack of confusion over yesterday's budget amendment votes.

Here's the sum total of the media coverage I've seen of the Libs' failure to present an amendment to the Cons' budget motion last week. From the Canadian Press:

The Liberals — who are not pushing for a spring election — didn't bother to introduce an amendment.

And from Janyce McGregor at CBC's Inside Politics blog:

I stand corrected, and humbly so, by those with far more procedural expertise than I.

Apparently, the Liberals are not bringing forward an amendment this year. So, the Bloc's proposed change (below) is the amendment, and the NDP's is the sub-amendment.

There may be some additional mentions somewhere in the media. But the lack of a Lib amendment on Canada's budgetary direction certainly doesn't seem to have been a major story - which is surprising considering how customary such amendments seem to be.

Mind you, the Libs' actions in 2009 were already somewhat of an anomaly, as their amendment set out their "probation" scheme rather than reflecting an alternative to the Cons' policies. But prior to that, the pattern looks to be absolutely clear: at least every year since minority Parliaments became the norm in 2004, the official opposition had presented a budget motion amendment which either set out a policy vision to compete with that of the government, or at least presented some substantive critique of the government of the day.

That includes 2005, when Stephen Harper responded to Paul Martin's budget by declaring that "the budget's priorities are conservative ones". Even after declaring that he had no objection to the Libs' plans that would justify actually opposing them, Harper introduced an amendment to more forcefully present his own party's views the next day.

And it also includes 2008. Then, the Libs were so afraid of their own shadow that they presented only a motion of vague disapproval aimed as much at the NDP as at the Cons, and were so fearful of an election that only seven of them showed up to vote for it. But even that reflected some willingness to take a position on the country's budgetary direction.

Now, I haven't looked further back in time than 2004, and I'm curious to see whether an official opposition has ever before chosen to sit down and say nothing when it has its opportunity to present a budget amendment. But I'd be surprised if it happened at all during periods of majority government when there was no risk of precipitating an election - meaning that the practice over the past few years would seem to make for a fairly compelling precedent.

So it's a remarkable piece of news that Ignatieff, holding the unique opportunity as Leader of the Opposition to present what he perceives to be the most viable alternative to the government's fiscal direction, simply declined to do anything with that chance. And that goes doubly when he's supposedly spent over a year trying to do something about his party's lack of direction or ideas.

In fairness, I don't hold any illusions that an amendment would hold any prospect of substantially changing the Cons' direction. But it still looks to be far out of the ordinary for Canada's Official Opposition to choose not to take an official position on how Canada's budget should be administered even if any amendment was bound to be voted down. And the fact that the Libs voluntarily left the NDP as the only national party to present an alternative vision for Canada might serve as a signal that voters should take a closer look at who's actually offering one.