I’m not sure how this made it through the house; I’d be very curious to hear if there’s a precedence for a money bill of this magnitude originating from an opposition MP’s private members bill becoming law. Either way, it’s off to the Senate now:

OTTAWA — The Harper government vowed Thursday to kill legislation introduced by a Liberal MP and quietly passed by the House of Commons that would allow parents to contribute up to $5,000 a year to their children’s education and deduct it
from their income tax.

As a very politically astute friend of mine commented – it’s a sad state of affairs for the Liberals when Dan McTeague is the ideas guy in the party. At the same time, it doesn’t say much for Jim Flaherty that McTeague may have come up with something more attractive than anything found in his budget. Regardless, this isn’t a bad idea, assuming the money is there to pay for it (which is debatable).

It probably would make a bit more political sense to offer this in the context of an election campaign, when you could complement it with some support for students from low income families but, by itself, this is a pretty attractive policy for the middle income families that Harper has been targeting over the past few years. Because of that, it’s going to cause a ton of headaches for both the Liberals and Conservatives. The Tories are going to have to oppose a popular policy they probably wish they’d thought up, while the Liberals will be on the hot seat if Harper finds a way to turn it into a confidence motion.