Stronach crosses floor to join Liberals

[Gabu]

That was rather unexpected.

I wonder if her sweetheart MacKay will follow suit?

[Gabu]

I'm sorta torn on my opinion of this.  On one hand, I'm happy to have her in the party, but on another hand, this basically means that she has no chance whatsoever of ever being leader of the Conservative Party now, which is really too bad.

[Gabu]

What did he do?

He apparently "ruined Austrian football forevermore".

[Gabu]

Is she a Conservative or what?

She was a Conservative MP prior to her defection.

[Gabu]

I wouldn't want somebody in my party who is willing to switch to the other side on a whim.

She was already the most liberal MP in the Conservative Party, and I would hardly call it a "whim", either; she perceived the Conservatives as getting in bed with the separatist party, the Bloq Quebecois, purely for political gain, and didn't want to stand for it.

[Gabu]

anyway, how can one defection stop the collapse of the government? Was there onoly a liikely one-vote margin?

Previously, we had these numbers of votes:

In favor

Liberals: 131 + speaker (does not vote unless there is a tie)
NDP: 19
Caroline Parrish: 1

Total: 151 + speaker in favor

Against

Conservatives: 99
Bloq Quebecois: 54

Total: 153 in favor

Unsure

Chuck Cadman: 1 (likely to vote in favor)
David Kilgour: 1 (likely to vote against)

Total: 1 likely in favor, 1 likely against

If the independents vote in the way that they're deemed likely to, we will have, in total, the following:

In favor: 152 + speaker
Against: 154

The only way for the Liberals to win in this case is to get the vote of both independents; otherwise, the budget would fail.

Now, however, with the defection of Stronach, we have the following:

In favor: 153 + speaker
Against: 153

So they only need one independent to vote in favor of the budget for the Speaker to be able to break the tie, and Cadman has hinted that he is indeed likely to vote in favor.  So, essentially, if Cadman does vote as he's expected to, Stronach will have indeed single-handedly saved the government.