Politics

From today's Globe I hear that two Liberal bills were defeated last night. Although making promises to support the legislation, the Conservative party ended up joining forces with the Bloc and NDP to vote down two Liberal bills aimed at reorganizing the structure of the Department of Foreign Affairs. It's interesting to note that the opposition parties weren't necessarily at odds with the proposed substance of the legislation, instead they saw it fit to punish Liberal arrogance, contending that no real effort at parliamentary consultation was undertook. Nonetheless, since the vote wasn’t of confidence, the Liberals will attempt to reintroduce an amended version of the bill for a future vote.

I'm not sure what this means one way or the other. Either the Conservatives, through some last minutes chicanery, decided to show how tenuous the Liberal minority really is, thus acquiring a modicum of political leverage/capital, or the Liberals, disengaged and cocksure, did a pitiful job in lobbying, negotiating, and counting/courting secure votes. I'd have to concluded that it's a little from column A, a little from column B.