Yay For Liberals

Liberals Will Not Prop Up Conservative Government: Bill Graham

February 16, 2006
Source: Liberal Party of Canada

It will be up to the NDP and Bloc Québécois – not Liberals – to prop up the Conservative government, Opposition Leader Bill Graham said.

In media interviews on February 16, 2006, Graham said that while the first priority of Liberals will be to work constructively with the other parties to make this parliament work as best they can, they will not be afraid to defeat Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s minority Conservative government if need be.

Graham said that Liberals were elected as the Official Opposition and they will oppose in an “effective and principled” manner. That means opposing Harper’s government if he refuses to accommodate Liberal positions on key issues such as child care and income tax cuts.

If they don’t accommodate these very important programs, they must turn to the NDP and Bloc for support in the House of Commons, since they are the ones who triggered the last election out of political opportunism.

“We’re not in the business of propping up the government,” he told the Globe and Mail. “We’re the Official Opposition. And that is our role, and we will stick to our points where they are important to the future of the country.

“Other parties will have to decide whether they want to compromise on this, because they’re the ones — the Canadian public very well knows — that put us in this position. They’re the ones that created the Harper government. They’re the ones that are going to have to accommodate it.”

But Harper, as leader of a minority government, has to accept the fact that he, too, must be willing to compromise “if he wants to continue to be the Government of Canada,” Graham said.

He said Liberals intend to push for its national early learning and child care program over the Conservative plan to send roughly $100 a month to parents.

He said he found “astonishing” the NDP’s “chutzpah” of proposing a subsidized plan in the coming session of parliament, since they killed such a plan in the first place by forcing the election.

If the Conservatives nix the Liberals’ income tax cuts in favour of a GST cut, Liberals will also be loudly speaking out, Graham said.

“When they find out the consequences of this, people are going to be astonished,” he said.

Graham assured his party that he will do his best to keep the opposition together through any leadership contest.