Don’t you love the smell of an election in the morning?

Its budget day;
I find myself clicking refresh on any number of different news and political websites hoping to get some new information that will let us know if we will be heading to the polls in May or not.

People keep asking if I think there will be an election, and had you asked me last week I would have chuckled and said not unless the opposition wants to give the Conservatives a majority.

Today I still feel that even at 38% or so, if the double digit lead the Conservatives hold over the Liberals in Ontario is correct that will be enough to generate the seats required for the Tories to pull a 1997 and find themselves with a thin majority.

The question is why would the opposition want to allow this?

The answer I think is pretty simple;
If you are the BQ, there is a very real possibility that your leader who is the only real face of the party will be moving to Provincial pastures within the next 12-18 months and you are better off contesting an election with him, then having a bitter leadership race which may very well result in a leader Quebeckers are generally apathetic to.

Duceppe is a known commodity good for a 45 seat pop.

The balance of the Commons is when it becomes a bit more hazy.

For the Liberals, as I have said for the last two years this is a party that needs four years in opposition to rebuild themselves. They don’t have the leader, support, will, or money to be in this constant state of election campaigning that a minority government provides.

This is a party that’s has problems that do not simply span from who the leader is, but simply a party that lacks direction or any identity. If you took the logos off the 2004, 2006, and 2008 Liberal Platforms someone with no knowledge of Canadian politics would be hard-pressed to assume they came from the same party.

They need direction and they need an end to infighting.
This is something that will not get done in the context of a minority government.

However I think there is just too much pride at stake for that to ever happen.

Yet we find ourselves with the Liberals polling somewhere between 23-27% nationally and a fairly consistent double digit gap between them and the Conservatives in Ontario.

Voting down this budget, or taking down the government on whatever ethical grounds they feel they may be going to the polls over seems more a leap of pride then of any real political strategy.

The Liberals needs to make fairly substantial gains to be anywhere near a position to consider forming a government.

The idea of walking into an election hoping that Canadians will value correct use of letterhead over the recovery of the economy is a stretch, yet its why we seem to find ourselves potentially at the polls.

I think the Liberals have just gone too far this time, its gone past the point of “Mr. Harper your time is up” and the Liberals almost have to go to the polls because abstaining from this budget will kill what’s left of their creditability.

Now we come to the NDP.
A party that wanted four very low cost concessions for their potential support.

A far cry from the billions of dollars they demanded from Paul Martin’s Liberals in 2005.

The Conservatives have countered with agreeing to two of the least left of center and low cost requests.

I have no idea how to even begin to gauge NDP support.
Polling has them at a support level that may cost them 15-20 seats then the next poll has them adding a couple.

However can the NDP really pass a budget with Corporate Tax Cuts?
I just don’t see it.

What I find all the more puzzling is that it appears that Thomas Mulcair seems to be the one rattling the saber to go to an election (at least by some online reports which we can very well take with a grain of salt)

Mulcair is perhaps the second most known commodity within the party,
And while he may very well be doing wonders within the party, I find it highly unlikely that he will be able to retain Outremont with Martin Cauchon running for the Liberals.

It’s not a slight at Mulcair, it’s simply a political reality of Quebec.

Outremont is a Liberal Stronghold, Mulcair was a Liberal Cabinet Minister in the Provincial Liberal Government, however he has hardly beat anyone of note in either election he has won, and now he faces a real honest to goodness and very personally popular Liberal.

I can see why the NDP may vote down the budget, but I just don’t see why many of them would be smiling while they do.

I guess we will find out shortly.