And from her Opposition critic?
Indeed. Keith Martin, in the scrums today, on the CIDA minister’s decision to untie Canada’s food aid from any requirement that only Canadian food suppliers be used:
“It’s very important. The untying of aid is a good decision on the part of the government. Untying aid enables the World Food Program to be able to get the best bang for the buck.”
We offer this up, not to facilitate Tory nyah-nyah look-even-our-critics-have-nothing-bad-to-say — although of course this will facilitate Tory nyah-nyah look-even-our-critics-have-nothing-bad-to-say — but to congratulate Martin and to wish Opposition critics would take this sort of cue more often. (The Conservatives and Alliance and Reform were usually just as bad on this.) If you’re outraged all the time, you’re not really outraged. And if you’re sometimes pleased, your outrage will be more convincing when it comes. Is this not obvious?
COMPARE-AND-CONTRAST UPDATE: Here’s Stéphane Dion on the same subject, this afternoon.
“It’s a strict minimum and we had to put pressure on the government so they would finally move and if they had not been so imprudent in their management of public finances Canada could have done more.”