Liberal Leader Stephane Dion dismissed Prime Minister Stephen Harper's New Brunswick road funding re-announcement as "old politics."
"It's old politics to re-announce money," he told Â鶹´«Ã½net's Mike Duffy Live on Monday, adding the money was first announced in March 2006.
"I commit that as prime minister, I will not play these kind of games. When you make a re-announcement, say so."
Harper made Monday's announcement at the New Brunswick legislature in Fredericton, with Premier Shawn Graham, a Liberal, by his side.
The feds will be kicking in $207 million over 10 years.
The Canadian Press cited a New Brunswick government source as saying the event was designed to give the prime minister an opportunity to be seen in a positive context with an Atlantic premier.
The federal Tories have been embroiled in nasty disputes with the governments of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador over equalization and the Atlantic Accords.
Host Mike Duffy noted that much of the spending in the announcement seems to be targeted to Acadian areas in north and northeastern New Brunswick -- areas that have traditionally voted Liberal.
"I'm not going to comment, because I am sure the premier had his word to say about where the money should be," Dion said.
He said some civil servants were upset by the cancellation of the Liberals' Energuide program -- which the Tories resurrected under a different name and presented as new.
"Canadians are not fooled by that. They understand that this government is more and more dishonest," Dion said.
The budget, Comuzzi
Dion's Liberals, along with the NDP, mostly voted against the Conservatives' 2007 budget. Dion said he opposed it because it was a bad budget, not because his party wanted an election.
The budget passed the Liberal-dominated Senate on Friday.
"My view about that is that the budget is voted and decided in a chamber elected by the Canadian people," Dion said.
There was one MP who rebelled against Dion's whipped vote -- veteran Ontario MP Joe Comuzzi.
He ostensibly voted with the government because the budget would provide funding for a cancer research centre in his city of Thunder Bay, providing 300 jobs.
While Comuzzi originally said he would sit as an Independent after being kicked out of the Liberal caucus, he is widely expected to join the Conservative caucus on Tuesday.
Harper will be in Thunder Bay on Tuesday for an announcement, according to the PMO.
Duffy asked why it was okay for a few Liberal Senators to vote for the budget when Comuzzi got expelled for doing so.
"There's a major difference. The House is where you have the responsibility, it's the accountable chamber," Dion said.
"The government is responsible to the House. If the House does not support the government, the government falls. It's not the case for the Senate."
As far as Comuzzi joining the Tories, "if he decided to be a Conservative, I understand," Dion said.
Comuzzi had previously left the cabinet of Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin in 2005 so he could vote against the same-sex marriage bill as a backbench MP.
"But I hope the government did not buy his support with an announcement in his riding," Dion said.
