Iggy and Steve patch up their differences

Not a big surprise:

The Liberal party will only support the minority Conservative government's federal budget if Prime Minister Stephen Harper agrees to an amendment calling for a "clear marker" of regular updates to Parliament on the impact of economic stimulus projects, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said Wednesday.

The move by Ignatieff appears to have staved off the immediate defeat of the Tories. Hours after Ignatieff's news conference, Tory House Leader Jay Hill said the government has no problem with the amendment.

"The government will be supporting the Liberal amendment to the budget," Hill told reporters. "We're very pleased as well the Liberals have decided to support our budget. We look forward to working cooperatively with them."

From the CBC. I think Jack Layton put it best:

Layton refused to specify whether the coalition between the Liberals and NDP was dead, saying only that: "We have a new coalition on Parliament Hill. It’s a coalition between Mr. Harper and Mr. Ignatieff."

Of course, the coalition was always a hard sell with the public, but I guess we'll have to put up with Steve for a while yet.

To be fair, not everything in the budget is totally awful, but the pros are often very mixed. Take the environmental initiatives therein:

The federal budget contained more than $3 billion in spending to address the environment, but it fell short of markers set by those who had called on the Conservatives to deliver a "green" economic stimulus plan.

The big-ticket items, including a $1 billion fund aimed at developing clean technologies over the next five years and a program to help pay for environmentally sustainable infrastructure, also worth $1 billion, were announced prior to yesterday.

The budget also included $300 million to expand an existing home retrofit program that gives grants for improvements to energy efficiency, $10 million to better monitor water and air quality and greenhouse gas emissions, and $292 million to help develop the Candu nuclear reactor and operate the Chalk River facility.

"The provisions in the budget relating to the environment are very significant," Environment Minister Jim Prentice told the Star. "When you add all this up, it's certainly the largest green stimulus that we've ever seen."

But critics say the federal government's plans fall far short of national public transit and other infrastructure needs while spending too much taxpayers' money in Alberta's oil sands and not enough on renewable energy.

"The only green measures in this budget ... of any importance go to nukes or carbon capture and storage," said Stephen Gilbeault of Montreal-based Equiterre.

From the Star. While I'm not as negative about those technologies as some, they have some serious issues. Besides the well-known concerns about nuclear waste, there's the fact that nuclear plants are ridiculously expensive and take a long time to build. Think of how many wind turbines and solar panels that could be built in the time taken to build a nuclear plant. In some parts of the world they might still be necessary (i.e. in places where there isn't enough hydroelectric capacity to stabilize the grid) but most of Canada has no need of additional nuclear plants. As for carbon capture, it's still pretty much hypothetical at this stage.

There is one bright spot in the budget, though. Maybe:

There is a good chance no one was applauding the federal government's decision to provide $50-million Institute for Quantum Computing in Tuesday's budget announcement louder than Research In Motion co-chief executive officer Mike Lazaridis.

The Institute was the brainchild of Mr. Lazaridis as well as several other researchers who founded the group in 1999 to advance the University of Waterloo's research and international standing in the areas of computer, engineering, mathematical and physical sciences.

From the National Post. Maybe this will enable us to be a world leader in something. Hopefully, though, we'll turf Harper soon, and move back in the direction of being a world leader in things we're known for (such as peacekeeping, social programs, etc), while keeping such nice research institutes as the aforementioned one. Surely we can do both?