Liberals sow, reap

The Conservative government has introduced its omnibus anti-crime bill. Anybody who ever read my previous blog will have guessed that I - soft on crime and proud of it - am no great fan of certain provisions of the bill, chief among them the appalling reverse onus on violent criminals to demonstrate that they shouldn't be locked away indefinitely as dangerous offenders. I don't object fundamentally to the increase in the age of consent to sixteen, given the inclusion of a two year window (i.e. a fourteen year old would still be able to consent to sex with a fifteen year old, but not with a seventeen year old). I'd probably have preferred that the two year window be replaced by an under eighteen window, but these things are necessarily arbitrary, and there's some discretion inherent in their enforcement. In any event, this bill at least misses the point less completely than does the government's drug strategy.

But woe to the Liberals. They haven't even let the throne speech pass yet, and they're already being told that the vote on this bill will be a confidence vote (and not the last one this session, either). This leaves Stéphane Dion with a two choices:
1. He can oppose the bill, and risk bringing down the government - which makes his refusal to do so on the throne speech look pretty stupid. On the other hand, there's some chance that one of the other opposition parties would agree to support the bill, thereby propping up the government (I can't imagine that the Bloc is eager for an election right now), since nobody's soft on crime anymore except me.
2. He can let the bill through, by voting in favour or abstaining. This wouldn't cause too great a hit to his credibility (nowhere near the hit that will be caused if he lets the Conservative environmental plan, which I imagine will also be a confidence vote, through), but it will signal that he's essentially willing to let the Conservatives have their way in the interests of avoiding an election. That won't help the Liberals at all once there finally is one.

Those are basically his choices: provoke an election, thereby nullifying whatever small advantage there was in letting the throne speech get through and making him look pretty stupid in the process, or capitulate indefinitely in the interests of avoiding an election. Both options will do the Liberals less good than opposing the throne speech would have.