Oxymoron watch: "Liberal opposition"

Today's lingering question is whether Stephane Dion and his Liberals, by supporting the budget, have "jumped the shark."

The phrase is borrowed from pop culture and an 11-year-old website that documents the precise point when a sitcom becomes so ridiculous that you know its days on air are numbered. On the old show Happy Days, it happened when Fonzie water-skied over a shark. Hence the name.

So, is this the moment? You have to go all the way back to Lester Pearson's days in the 1960s to find another minority government that managed to deliver three budgets with the help of the opposition.

Sooner or later, one presumes, the phrase "Liberal opposition" is going to start seeming a bit like an oxymoron. Maybe you can say that an opposition party jumps the shark when it appears this way on Rick Mercer's show. (See Message from the Liberals.)

Outside the Liberal caucus room today, Senator David Smith, one of the campaign co-chairs, kept saying that the leader would defeat Harper's government when "strategically, we're in the best position to win."

Logically, however, that must mean Liberals aren't in that position now, right?

"Well, I'm not saying that!" Smith said. "It's when you're best in a position to win!"

Live blog: The budget reaction

5:33 p.m. A little over an hour since Dion told us that there would be no election, and any excitement surrounding budget day seems to be rapidly dwindling. Some pundits are predicting that this budget will be a distant memory in a couple of days.

As for Liberal MPs, they have a meeting tonight to be "briefed" on the budget. And then there's tomorrow's regular Wednesday meeting of caucus. Of course there will also be discussion about why Dion made the decision he did - it's said that he didn't tell them what he was going to do and most had to learn from the TV.

Are there MPs who are ticked about this? Yes. Are there MPs who would like to have an election ASAP? Yes. But it's unlikely they will go public. That doesn't mean we won't keep looking for them...

4:46 p.m. Liberal MPs are starting to filter into the hallway. They seem mainly okay about propping up this budget. John Godfrey, the soon-to-be former MP for Don Valley West, exited the chamber hauling a suitcase and heading to New York. "I guess I don't have to stick around now for the destruction of the government," he said.

4:40 p.m. And with Dion's pronouncement, the crowd of reporters has dispersed, presumably to make March vacation plans. Dion, incidentally, came out into the foyer holding the hand of his wife, Janine Krieber. That's unusual - a reflection no doubt of how significant that small statement was.

4:35 p.m. Dion is here. It doesn't sound like he's crazy about this "very modest" budget. He's not taking any questions.

He's decided it's not worth provoking an election. There it is.

4:30 p.m. Garth Turner wants the Liberals to fight an election over this budget. But he's not sure what Dion thinks.

The former Conservative-turned-Liberal, MP for Halton, is one of the most hawkish in the caucus, in wanting to provoke the government's collapse. And he thinks all the ingredients are there for a good fight. But he's wandering around this lobby like the rest of us, waiting to see what Dion decides. Clearly, the leader has decided to keep this decision to himself.

4:16 p.m. Now it's Duceppe. No surprise, he doesn't like it either. Nothing in it for anyone.

Funny, he's saying as well that the Liberals have to decide if there's an election.

4:12 p.m. Reporters are having a very hard time getting Layton to say whether this budget is worth an election. Apparently that's for Harper and Dion to decide.

4:08 p.m. One of Dion's press persons has come out and says the Liberal leader will be talking about the fact that Montreal didn't do a single trade today.

Just kidding.

Oh, here's Jack Layton. The budget, he says, surprise, surprise, is inadequate. "Clearly fails working families in Canada."

4 p.m. The Commons' lobby is one big TV studio and about 30 reporters are already gathered around the microphone where Stephane Dion is due to give his reaction to the budget. That pretty much tells you where the story is today, doesn't it?

This is not the hill to die on

The main purpose of budget lockups is to provide people with instant opinions to pronounce  when the budget is released.

We here at the Star have reached two, it seems. (And for the record, it took about a couple of hours inside the lockup for the impressions to settle in.)

First impression – this budget is complicated; an accountant’s dream.

Second impression – this is a status-quo budget, politically. Though there’s not much in here for non-Conservative voters to love – not much on the environment, no big measures to get that elusive women’s vote for the Tories – there’s not much for Liberals to hate either.

And that, as all political junkies know, is the whole end game of this budget day.  Is this the budget that will provoke the Liberals to bring down the government and plunge Canada into an election? Probably not.

If the mood in the lockup is any indication, reporters don’t seem to be planning now for an election. Some were even overheard saying they could now make vacation plans for March.

But the instant opinion we need now is from Liberal leader Stephane Dion, who is due to pronounce on the budget about a half hour after Finance Minister James Flaherty starts speaking.

I’ll be live blogging here as soon as Flaherty gets up to speak.