Angry in the Great White North

Michael Ignatieff's strategy of voting against the government on everything has a curious side effect.  It potentially magnifies the relative importance of the Bloc Quebecois.

Consider the numbers.  Of the currently seated MPs, there are 143 Conservative, 77 Liberals (one of whom won't count, as he is the Speaker), 36 NDP, 48 BQ, and 1 independent.  The independent, Andre Arthur, tends to vote Conservative, so I'm going to lump him with the CPC.

Until this week, the NDP kept to their vow to vote against the Conservatives at every opportunity.  So let's cancel out one CPC vote for every NDP vote.

That means there were 108 Conservative votes in parliament arrayed against 76 Liberals and 48 Bloc Quebecois.  By the percentages, the Conservatives controlled 46.8% of the votes in play, the Liberals 32.6%, and the BQ 20.6%.

Things have changed.  The Liberals are now out of the picture, voting against everything.  The NDP is taking the position that flexibility is required.  So remove a Conservative vote for every Liberal this time.

That means there are 68 Conservative votes in parliament arrayed against 48 Bloc Quebecois and 36 NDP.  By the percentages, the Conservatives control 45.1% of the votes in play, the Bloc Quebecois 31.4%, and the NDP 23.5%.

Seems to me that the Bloc Quebecois comes out on top here.  The media will be tracking the interesting stories, as always.  Thanks to Michael Ignatieff, the Liberals are no longer interesting going forward.  The media might simply report that the Liberals, as always, voted against a bill.  No interview or sound bite required.  So when covering politics, the media will look to the Bloc Quebecois and to the NDP for interesting stories on how future Conservative legislation will be met by parliamentarians.  And given the numbers, the NDP seems to be junior partner in the BQ-NDP functioning opposition.  I expect we'll  be seeing more of Gilles Duceppe in the weeks and months ahead, with Jack Layton playing a somewhat lesser role, especially if Duceppe is quick to take the initiative.