Thanks to a responder from my last posting, I was directed to a weblog with some inside info on the negotiations that went on between the Liberals and the NDP prior to the Tuesday vote (a motion to curtail Canada's military participation in Afghanistan by 2009).
According to ceasefireinsider,
The Liberal motion was uncritical of the military mission and supported its continuance unchanged, yet called for the government to notify NATO that our troops would be withdrawn from the combat mission in Kandahar when the current commitment ends in February 2009.
(snip)
In politics, the wording of a motion is important. When I first read the Liberal motion last week, I feared that it was D.O.A., or Dead-on-Arrival. The motion let the Conservative government off the hook by not expressing any concerns at all about the failing mission, did not call on the government to change the focus from war-fighting to peacebuilding, and missed what is becoming an obvious solution to the war: a diplomatic settlement.
We urged the Liberals to make a small amendment to their motion in order to win NDP support, and Former UN Ambassador for Disarmament Peggy Mason actually suggested specific changes to the language that would likely have been palatable to both Liberals and the NDP. We sent the suggestions to every Liberal and NDP Member of Parliament. The NDP even proposed an amendment during the debate, but the Liberals rejected it.
Whew!
That is a relief. If this account is factual, though, it only increases my still relatively small fear that Dion is listening to the wrong people.
He must have some sort of workable strategy! I am even possibly prepared to accept some triangulation at this point.
Also, it lets me off the hook for my potential 'J-Lay' confrontation. As a Canadian, of course, I reflexively recoil from anything confrontational.
2 comments:
Pleased to help with all the coverage that Elevator News Network can't provide.
"J Lay." Ha! Haven't heard that before.
Thank you!
I just came up with it yesterday and was pleased to note that it didn't showing in a preliminary google, at least for the first few pages of results.
I must admit that I seriously considered an alternative, Ja-Lay (BTW in future please do not omit the '-', it is important for the branding).
And, in retrospect, maybe Ja-Lay would be better because 1) it avoids the rhyming sound pronouncing J-Lay produces, and 2) Ja-Lay gives a bit of a shoutout to Ja-Lay's hedonistic, mustachioed, potentially-rastafari socialistic background.
Any opinion?
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