Angry in the Great White North

Dion confidante and Liberal MP Bryon Wilfert told QP on Sunday that he will advise Dion against triggering an election when the throne speech is delivered, citing a lack of party preparation and no clear defining election issues to rally behind.

"We're never afraid of fight, but I think when you go into a fight you should pick the timing," Wilfert said.

I find that comment about picking fights interesting. As an opposition party, the Liberals ought to consider that tradition would have the decision to call an election a perogative of the prime minister.

In other words, Stephen Harper would normally pick the timing of the fight.

But Stephen Harper doesn't. Perceiving the potential for abuse, and the actual times the Liberals in the past have called elections in order to take advantage of Conservative weakness, the Conservative government passed into law an act that sets fixed times for elections.

As far as Stephen Harper is concerned, it is not the role of government to "pick fights", but to govern.

Of course, in a minority situation like the one Canada has had since the 2006 election, the opposition parties have the chance to take down the government in a non-confidence vote. With the Throne Speech coming up, such an opportunity is coming. The NDP and the Bloc Quebecois have already made a list of demands of the Throne Speech they know full well Stephen Harper's government can't or won't agree to. Arguably, Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe are acting on principle, though it is up to them to decide just how much of their non-Conservative platforms they will insist are issues of principle.

But for a Liberal like Wilfert, principle is vastly more pliable. He wants the Liberal Party to take a stand, but then not actually stand up. His plan is for the Liberals to denounce the Throne Speech, and then abstain from voting in order to avoid a confidence vote going against the Conservatives and triggering an election. Why would such a plan make sense to the Liberals? Two reasons, really:

1. Liberals have never really believed in anything. The party has always taken platform planks from the left and from the right, calling it "moderation". That winning formula was based on having only one core belief, and that is that they believed they were owed power by Canadians who could only benefit from Liberal Party wisdom (borrowed wisdom, you might say). So while Wilfert's plan might cause MPs from other parties who are worried about what an abstention would say about their principles a least a moment's pause, Liberal MPs would have no fundamental opposition to the scheme.
2. Liberals are the political equivalent of mafia organization. Jason Cherniak wishes Stephane Dion was more like Michael Corleone, and in that Cherniak meant that Dion needed to ruthless with those who threatened Dion's plan to achieve power. By definition, a criminal enterprise has no principles other than the acquisition of power and wealth for themselves, and to use that power and that money to co-opt others who would be useful in helping to maintain power and to acquire more money. Getting into a fight over anything other than the principle of power and money, and you are doing the family party a disservice.

The Liberals had become accustomed with accepting huge donations from Corporate Canada as tribute. Regular Canadians weren't asked for money, however. Thanks to the Sponsorship Program, the Liberals use the tax system as the tool to take money from us for their own personal use.

Things are different now.

Under the new donation rules, Corporate Canada doesn't provide money anymore. Joe Volpe's attempt to get money from pharmaceutical giant Apotex was a public relations disaster as the children of the corporate executives were used as conduits for "personal" donations. After that debacle, Corporate Canada has been playing it straight.

And as for stealing money, the Liberals will have to wait until they get back into power. For now, they are reduced to laughable scenes of MPs Mark Holland and Marlene Jennings stealing office files from the Conservatives. Maybe the Liberals are stealing office supplies and selling them on eBay to raise cash, but that's about the worst they could do right now.

So no power and no money.

Without those two things, the Liberals are an empty shell. Environmentalism? Stephane Dion did nothing about meeting Kyoto targets when he was in power. Apparently it was difficult to set priorities. Of course it's difficult. Power? Check. Money? Check. Other stuff? Whatever.

How do you set priorities for a set of issues that you simply don't care about?

And that the problem facing the Liberals today. Wilfert's comment about picking a fight is dead on right. The Liberals ought not to be picking a fight about the environment or Afghanistan or high individual taxes or health care or education or offshore oil or the Arctic or aboriginal rights or women's issues or any of hundreds of issues that simply don't matter to them.

The only things that matter to Liberals are power and money. The Liberals will pick a fight if it means getting more power or getting more money.

Would an election now put the Liberals in power? All the indicators say the Liberals would lose an election, and would even be worse off.

Would an election now put money into Liberal Party coffers? Unless the Liberals win, the opposite would happen. Add to that the expense of another leadership campaign.

Besides Wilfert, other Liberals are making the same calculation and coming to the same conclusion:

Members of the national Liberal caucus are highly unlikely to vote en masse against the upcoming Speech From the Throne, say some top Liberals, adding that Liberal Party Leader Stephane Dion's latest public pronouncement of possibly voting against the government is an attempt to otherwise demonstrate that the nervous and infighting Liberals are not afraid to fight an election.

The Liberal leadership needs "quite a bit of latitude in order to find a way to support without appearing to be too cowardly to actually challenge Harper in an election, or, Dion being perceived as weak.... The [OLO] has to lay the groundwork for that now because if he waits until the last minute then the tale is told," said one top Liberal, who requested anonymity in exchange for candour.

The Grit said Liberal MPs "are not interested in fighting a battle that personally or individually they might lose to come back to the same situation because even their own polls tell them, it's a repeat performance," and Liberal MPs "still don't think Harper will get a majority but if he wins an extra seat that happens to be yours, it doesn't help you very much."

Who cares if an election results in pro-Kyoto bill C-30 getting put back into the legislative agenda? The Kelowna Accords? Please, get serious.

It's just about the power and the money, both for individual MPs and for the party as a whole.

As a Liberal, you just have to get your priorities straight. Wilfert understands that. Heck, even Stephane Dion understood that once you had money and you had power, there were no other priorities worth worrying about, which is why nothing got done on Kyoto when he was environment minister, and why nothing will ever get done on it should he ever become prime minister. Wilfert and other people are asking Stephane Dion to remember that is really isn't all that hard to set Liberal priorites. Priority #1: Power. Priority #2: Money. Fighting the good fight is not the goal. Winning power is the goal. Getting rich is the goal. Don't pick a fight unless it looks like you'll add to your power and put money in the pockets of Liberals and their supporters.

Now we have to see if Stephane Dion is listening.