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[I haven't seen a serious thread dedicated to this topic so I thought I would start one. I put it in the general political forum rather than the con one since I would hope for a variety of viewpoints.]

Okay. Why did Harper put the party funding policy in the new budget? Apart from the typical rhetoric of "stupid" and "he's a meanie!" I'd like to explore the topic from the angle that he had some political strategy behind it even if he did not envision the present scenario. Love him or hate him, I think most people can grant that he is fairly politically savvy... savvy enough to dominate the last session of parliament with a minority government (among other things... though this is not to say he is a genius) and savvy enough to foresee that the opposition parties wouldn't take kindly to signing their own death warrant.

So why do you think he did it?

I see three main groups of scenarios.

Group 1: He put it in thinking that the budget as is would go through.

This seems really unlikely to me. The only thing I can think of would be that he thought the bill would get through on public support. Maybe they thought the public would be behind it since it was an effort to reduce government spending. In this case the opposition would get skewered by the public if they stood against it. However, it seems too thorny an issue to put through in the main budget and risk a confidence vote. At the same time it seems obvious the only way you could get it through,if you had confidence to get it through, would be in a majority government.

The only other thing I can think of is that he was counting on the other parties not wanting to bring down the government so soon after an election. However, given the choice between survival and doing poorly in another election, the rational choice would have to be survival.

So this group seems to be a very unlikely strategy.

Group 2: He put it in knowing that it wouldn't go through but didn't expect the degree of response by the opposition.

I can only think that he may have wanted to draw further attention to the terrible state of the liberal party. It was no big secret that the liberals are on the edge of collapse from debt and interparty division, but now everyone in Canada knows.

Another option might be that he wanted to see how Dion would react in the hopes that he would react poorly.

Group 3: He put it in knowing that it would draw a strong react from opposition.

Harper may or may not have had foreknowledge of a possible 2/3 way power grab and wanted to get the jump on them. Or he may have desired a very strong response from the opposition parties. I find this very unlikely since it places a number of things far out of his control. Maybe he wanted to force the parties to make a crisis decision? But why? Maybe he wanted to help topple Dion and see a liberal leadership race start sooner than later? But why? You'd think he'd want a weak leader like Dion in the front and a host of infighting behind him as long as possible.

Any ideas?

   

He understood that we have a finicaial crisis and was trying to ease the taxy paying burden of everyday Canaidans. If the people believe in any sort of political party they should dig into thier own pockets to support it.

   

If the CPC got wind of Layton's dealings, it would have been better to force them to act before they were ready than to let them spring the trap.

   

My guess would be 3 but that still does not make any sense as it would have to be redacted. This was an armature move any way you slice it.

   

Why? to bankrupt the opposition of course. Harper doesn't strike me as someone who handles opposing viewpoints very well to begin with and he's publicly stated his desire to make Canada more conservtaive, well you couldn't do much better than destroying the opposition parties finances.
I guess he thought the leaderless Liberals wouldn't be in any mood for a fight so despite huffing and puffing they'd eventually back off. I think they saw it as their very survival as a party being put at stake.

   

If he understood we faced a financial crisi then why was he constantly reasuring Canadians that we had nothing to worry about....and the $3.75 or whatever they got for my vote came from the tax coffers via my pocket. Oh and how many voters gave their vote at one time or another to a party they knew had a rabbits chance in hell of winning but they knew the party could use the money to grow.

   

Spot on, in a "first past the post" system where voting Liberal in Alberta, voting Tory in Toronto and voting NDP & Green pretty much everywhere are pointless exercises at least you know you're contributing somehow, remove the funding and you'll see the turnout drop 10% immediately.

   

You mean that it generated alternating current?
(couldn't pass this up)

   

Actually, voting anything but Conservative in 99% of Alberta is a snowball's chance in hell. I think everyone was surprised that Linda Duncan got her seat, even with Strathcona's left wing leanings. I know the only reason I even voted was to give a party other the Conservatives an extra $1.95 to fight a future election.

Frankly, I'd go with option 2. He thought he could emasculate his opposition, especailly given that the Libs were essentially leaderless.

   

I don't, he wanted to cut public funding to the bloc

that was his prime reason.

   

I really think he thought that the Opposition would roll over and take it, thus hurting themselves. If they didn't, I think he thought a Non-Confidence Vote would simply trigger another Election and give him an Election Issue he thought would result in a Majority for him. The Coalition was not anticipated and left him scrambling for a way to back down.

The Liberals having accelerated Dion's departure might even make the idea of a new Election unfavorable for him now. Current Poll numbers can change quickly if the "interim" Liberal Leader plays his cards well. We'll have to wait and see how things play out from here, but I suspect Harper's days of pushing the Opposition are over whether he survives or not.

   

The real question is why did Liberals let Dion do what he did?

   

He was still the Leader.

   

I'm going to go with #2. Harper was likely getting used to the Liberals bending over and didn't expect them find their backbone again.

   

I just don't know about that exact logic. It's one thing to expect them to allow a policy which would be ideologically distasteful to them and it's another thing to expect them to twiddle their fingers for a policy that would undermine their future.

He had to expect a strong response but there had to be a (seemingly) valuable strategic reason which would make him propose the policy.

   

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