Orangemail

Jack Layton looked on TV every bit the Bantam Rooster as he high-stepped into a meeting with Harper yesterday. His veiled threat of forcing an election if he did not get his way worked with Paul Martin but it seems to have fallen on deaf ears when he met with Stevie on October 31. He was not nearly as cocky in appearance when the cameras caught him after the meeting. In fact, he looked a little like a joker who did a pratfall and got no applause. To add to his chagrin, his former ‘partners’ led by Bill Graham, made sport of him in the House.

Not that Jack was wrong to try to get some teeth into the proposed environment act tabled recently by the Conservatives. It needs a more aggressive timetable, and this is even more evident if we can believe only a portion of the latest economic study on Greenhouse gases. After a week of shouting for withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, Layton thought he was on a roll. But trying to blackmail, or orangemail, Harper was the wrong tactic, in fact it may have some long-term repercussions for the Bantam Rooster.

The NDP likely picked up some support in the last two elections from disenchanted Liberals and non-reformists, but to see your vote being used as a threat to topple the government on an issue that many people are unsure of, smacks of hubris. I suspect that a number of the disenchanted who voted Orange last time will mark an X for the Green Party in the next election. Their new leader might bring a little decorum to the House, and in any case, would be unlikely to run around like a little barnyard rooster, attacking everything in sight.

Jack’s early morning crowing was overshadowed by the Income Trust announcement that came later in the day. As proper as the tax change was, the sudden news conference by Flaherty showed us another side of the Harper government. The clamps put on caucus by Stevie seem to have worked for once. There was no Liberal-like leaking of the tax change days before the announcement. That may also explain why Turner was booted out, since he was wont to talk outside the closed meetings. Sometimes a little secrecy is a good thing.

Given that it is now very politically incorrect to refer to an Honourable Member as any type of animal, I should not make comparisons of Jack with my former pet Bantam rooster that so reminded me of yesterday’s antics. Sorry, Jack.