Libby Davies makes the NDP look foolish with the withdrawl of an embarrassing motion

Last week, Vancouver East MP and NDP Leadership hopeful Libby Davies withdrew Motion 141, a proposal she had made to parliament on June 6th to reduce the waiting period for recent immigrants to collect Canadian government-paid old-age pensions.

Davies who clearly has ambitions to replace Jack Layton as NDP leader finally clued in to the fact that legislation proposed by the Official Opposition will garner attention, and when the NDP gets attention, it's usually of the negative variety.

Davies explained in an article she wrote for her spouse's website today that, "We have a national media scrutinizing us as never before (I learned this lesson well with motion 141 just recently). We have a majority Conservative government who see three opposition parties without permanent leaders, and easy pickings ahead. For those of us in the NDP caucus, we will need to be fully engaged and active in Parliament as never before."

It's good to learn that Davies thinks the NDP should finally take their role in parliament seriously, even if that new course is motivated by fear of embarrassment in the media rather than professionalism and conscientiousness as public officials.

However there is a difference between wanting and doing, as Davies yet again demonstrated. In withdrawing the motion, the NDP has again managed to make fools of themselves by saying,

"As for motion 141, this was submitted in error and Libby Davies (Vancouver East) is withdrawing it."

Get that? Davies, the NDP's Deputy Leader, accidentally tabled a motion to Parliament. The fact that it was widely criticized and ridiculed with a party leadership convention on the horizon no doubt helped Davies recognize her mistake.

But David Akin pointed out on his blog that if Davies made a mistake by tabling that motion, it's a mistake she has repeated frequently. Akin noted the same motion was put forward by Davies more than ten times in the last ten years.

Conservative MP Kevin Sorinson explained Davies 'mistake' more plausibly: "The only reason Ms. Davies is withdrawing her OAS Motion M-141 is because her leadership contention musings is forcing issues like this one into the spotlight. She has to try and rid herself of this kind of reckless-spending measure that her and her Opposition colleagues are always pulling on the governing party. "

With ringmaster Layton gone, the clowns are running the NDP circus. The laughs will keep coming, but only as long as Canadians continue to realize that people like Libby Davies should be kept as far as possible from the reins of power.

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