Dion keeps door open on Throne Speech

The door must be only open a little crack. After all the Conservatives are highly unlikely either to announce positively that they will end any combat mission in Afghanistan in Feb. 2009 or that they will bring back the amended environmental bill that contains items the Conservatives can never accept. Of course if the Conservatives and Liberals are dead set against having an election they will find some ways of making the waters murky enough that they will save their ugly faces. However Dion might as well figh an election now before his position in the party gets even worse or he has to make himself look ridiculous by voting with the Conservatives.

Dion keeps door open on Throne Speech
The Canadian Press

September 26, 2007 at 1:58 PM EDT

MONTREAL — A tough-talking Gilles Duceppe says the Bloc Québécois is in “election mode” in anticipation of a fall vote.

But Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion is keeping the door open to supporting the minority Conservative government's throne speech next month — provided his priorities are addressed.

Mr. Dion said he's not asking for a Liberal throne speech on Oct. 16, but wants it to reflect four of his party's priorities.

The Liberal leader, speaking in Montreal on Tuesday, said he expects a bill on climate change to stay alive — something the Conservatives appear dead-set against doing.





He also said he wants poverty and economic competitiveness to be addressed in the throne speech, which lays out the government's plans.

Mr. Dion also wants the Conservatives to make it clear that Canadian soldiers will be out of their combat role in Afghanistan as of February 2009.

“That's what we ask,” he said after a meeting with his Quebec MPs. “That's the minimum we're asking from the speech from the throne.”

The Tories favour an extension of the Afghan mission but have been coy about how they will proceed.

Mr. Duceppe emerged from a caucus meeting in Ottawa to announce that the separatist Bloc is ready to take on the Conservatives in Quebec.

He said his chief organizer, MP Mario Laframboise, will head out Thursday to tour the province to get ready for a possible fall election.

Mr. Duceppe has said he can't support the throne speech unless five key conditions are met. One of those conditions is the same as Mr. Dion's — a guarantee that the Canadian combat mission in Afghanistan will end on schedule in February 2009.

Another Bloc demand calls for an end to federal spending powers in provincial jurisdictions.

Mr. Dion shrugged off a series of polls showing his party in the doldrums in Quebec, and said he expects his home province will ultimately rally behind the Liberals.

He said Quebeckers will recoil from the Conservative party and its “hidden” right-wing agenda.

Mr. Dion seized on a new book by a long-time confidant of Prime Minister Stephen Harper as proof the Tories are preparing to implement drastic changes if they win a majority government.

“This hidden agenda (is) confirmed again by a close adviser of the prime minister — Mr. Tom Flanagan — confirming that if there were a majority government, they would be a Thatcherite government, a Reagan government, a Bush government.”

Mr. Dion said those changes will start with the elimination of the gun registry, the Canadian Wheat Board, and agricultural supply management.

Mr. Duceppe chimed in on the hidden right-wing agenda theme.

“I think the only very clear agenda is ours,” the Bloc leader said.

“What does (Harper) want to do with Afghanistan, first of all? We don't know. When you don't say what you have to say, you have a hidden agenda.”