This is just a preliminary assessment of today's Throne Speech, which supposedly sets the agenda for the coming session of Parliament. I will provide an expanded version on Thursday.
With an extensive list of aspirational programs that could only ever be enacted over a period of years, little attempt to prioritize among those programs, and no attempt whatsoever to cost any of them, Wednesday's Throne Speech in Ottawa did not seem much like a plan for a session of Parliament, particularly for a minority government in the midst of a pandemic.
It seemed much more like an election manifesto -- and that is what it may well turn out to be. Both the Conservatives and the Bloc Quebecois have indicated they will not support it when it goes to a confidence vote in Parliament. That leaves the Liberals depending on the NDP, which has not yet committed itself. If it does indeed come to a Fall election, the Liberals have already come up with one key slogan: "this is no time for austerity".
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