Tonight's Afghan Mission Vote
Tonight, parliament will decide whther to extend our mission in Afghanistan.
The Liberals will be allowing a free vote on the Afghan mission, while the NDP and the BQ will be voting against it.
This has me wondering how individual Liberals MPs, and the leadership candidates in particular, will be voting. My feeling is that Ignatieff will support the mission, as that would be consisted with everything he's said in the past. I think many others will vote in favour, too.
Ujjal Dosanjh, Hedy Fry, and that whole group will probably vote against.
Brison, Dion, Dryden? I'm not sure.
Any thoughts?
The Liberals will be allowing a free vote on the Afghan mission, while the NDP and the BQ will be voting against it.
This has me wondering how individual Liberals MPs, and the leadership candidates in particular, will be voting. My feeling is that Ignatieff will support the mission, as that would be consisted with everything he's said in the past. I think many others will vote in favour, too.
Ujjal Dosanjh, Hedy Fry, and that whole group will probably vote against.
Brison, Dion, Dryden? I'm not sure.
Any thoughts?
posted by Toronto Tory at 1:22 PM
5 Comments:
The Liberal position on the Afghanistan vote is a sound one. Harper has taken a leaf from the Bush Book, inspired by Frank Luntz and ghost-written by Karl Rove, and tried to set a trap for the opposition parties. Harper is trying to divide the MPs into two camps of his own choosing: those "for" the troops (meaning those who will give Harper a blank cheque by voting for the extension for 2 years without any discussion or any qualifications), and those who against Harper and therefore against the troops.
This dog won't hunt. Canadians understand politicians who try to pull fast ones like that, and expect their MPs to watch out for them and for their nation and its troops.
Bush has bungled the Iraq war and is bungling Afghanistan, because there was and is too little planning to "win the peace".
We need a proper debate on what Afghan needs from Canada, so that we can decide what peacekeeping steps to take in addition to what peacemaking steps we should take.
What are our objectives? The leader of our country should spell that out. What must we do, in the short term and long term?
Harper asks for a blank cheque, and frames the discussion as being for or against the troops. The troops are better served by a country which knows what it is asking them to risk their lives for, and to die for if necessary. Let us not put them in jeopardy because we could not spare more than six hours to discuss why they should risk all.
Let us take the time to have a full and proper discussion. And let us postpone the vote until that takes place.
Harper is playing politics and the matter is too serious for that to happen.
I thought the Liberals had committed Canada to the three Ds: diplomacy, development and defence so as to allow Afghanistan a functioning democracy. Three of the four parties were in favour and now Harper, at the request of the government of Afghanistan, was seeking to extend the mission to give more time for success.
The Liberal position now is unclear. Having agreed to a debate, they are allowing a free vote as if they had no policy on the matter. The questions they are asking are childish. Having made the decision in the first place, they are the people who can best answer them. It seems petty politics like sabotaging the commission which was going to improve the political appointments process.
curiositykilledthecat,
I thought we might have an intelligent discussion about this. I guess you thought otherwise. Tone down the hyperbole, and try to make a point without throwing a Bush reference in there.
You can do better.
I noticed Brison and Ignatieff voting in favour; Dion against. Hansard confirms Dryden and Fry voted against.
The only thing I read about this was that the Liberal interim leader did not like the sudden change to being a vote on extending two years. Typically when something is voted on, it is not changed the day of the vote. The Liberal party was unable to determine its position in that few hours, and so went with a free vote. Like the Conservatives who are now requiring all communications to go through the PMO, the Liberal party has its discipline to follow, and had to declare a free vote, so that its policy positions are not determined in an afternoon as reaction to the sudden change.
I am still willing to give Stephen the benefit of the doubt, and assume he was not scheming to call an election along the lines of supporting the troops or not.
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