Conservatives Waking Up?

Opposition backs off on toppling government

Paul Martin's Liberals have been given some breathing room, as the Conservatives are not expected to introduce a non-confidence motion on Tuesday to try and topple the government.

The Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois have their opposition days on Tuesday and Friday respectively, meaning they can set the agenda those days and introduce non-confidence motions.

Actually, it gets even better. The Conservatives are trying to re-define Gomery's role to include the naming of names. While I don't know the legal side of it too well - the Justice Minister is already calling it "inappropriate, unjustified and harmful" - this is a much smarter play for them then trying to bring down the government. Also in the article is an expectation that the government will at least last to the fall, but I bet that means we can start planning on a February election.

In other news, the Conservatives are planning to hand over the tapes they allege contain evidence of the Liberals trying to entice a Conservative to vote against his party. The party had dragged its feet over turning over these tapes, and generally hasn't been as enthusiastic about the contents as either Grewal himself, or the other opposition parties. This leads me to think that there's no "there" there, and the Liberals are probably not too frightened.