Ten years after the death of Pierre Trudeau, no issue demonstrates more clearly the moral bankruptcy of the Michael Ignatieff-led Liberal Party of Canada than the treatment it just handed out to the Canadian unemployed.

Last week on the eve of a routine House of Commons vote on third reading, Ignatieff announced improvements to Employment Insurance legislation were no longer necessary. As Erin Weir points out, a year ago the Liberal leader was ready to provoke an election over poor E.I. benefits. Now that the unemployment rate has gone from 8.4 per cent down to 8.1 percent he has decided it is wrong to improve the program.