The government's plans for Canadian workers, for Employment Insurance (EI) and for the tens of thousands of migrant workers who come here annually are murky and unclear.

Commenting on changes in EI announced, but not specified, in the Budget Omnibus Bill the Minister of Finance says "any job is a good job."

The Minister of Human Resources has a somewhat different story. She says that unemployed Canadians will only be required to take jobs for which they are qualified and in their own regions.

The Minister of Finance goes to Committee and, with a contemptuous pout, tells his collegaues that we'll all know what the EI rules are when the regulations are published. That will only be after Parliament passes the Budget Bill.

What happens when the smartest man in the room (by his own estimation) proves too clever by half? What happens when a one-man band puts on a third-rate show? What happens when a "brilliant strategist" is so full of uncontrollable resentment and meanness that he keeps getting himself in trouble by interfering where he has no business?

Whenever it appears that Stephen Harper may be closer to that elusive goal of majority government, along comes Stephen Harper to remind suspicious Canadians they're dead right to be suspicious. That's what the Bev Oda fiasco is really about.

Never mind the prime minister's stout defence to date of his intergovernmental affairs minister and her hinky activities in the peculiar case of the KAIROS contract. Chances are high Bev Oda is not long for this political world.