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So now, finally, all is revealed. It seems that the critiques were right after all; the federal Conservatives under the leadership of Stephen Harper really did have a “hidden” agenda – just not the one everyone thought. Instead of being the committed conservatives that some people feared, but that just as many people hoped for, it turns out that the Harper Conservatives were actually big-borrowing, big-spending liberals in the style of Brian Mulroney and Joe Clark.
The Harper government is poised to deliver a budget that projects a deficit of $34 billion this year followed by another $30 billion next year. To put those numbers into perspective, consider that the highest ever federal deficit previously recorded in Canada was approximately $39 billion in the 1992-1993.
In a attempt to placate those voters – especially conservative voters – who are sure to be angered, not just with the deluge of red ink of this fiscal plan, but more particularly by the speed and ease with which he has broken his no-deficit pledge of the recent election campaign, Mr. Harper is promising that the budget will be back in the black by the end of five years. Assuming that is true – a dubious assumption given that these are the same crystal ball gazers who just weeks ago were still assuring us that there would be no borrowing – the total accumulated deficit by then could very well exceed $100 billion, virtually wiping out any progress made in the last decade in whittling down Canada’s national debt.
Mr. Harper is promising other provisions in the budget calculated to appease conservatives, like making certain tax cuts “permanent” while reducing other taxes. No one should be bamboozled by this. In the first place, by borrowing money he’s actually raising taxes, but leaving them for the next generation to pay. As for making any tax cut “permanent”, the promise is nothing more than empty rhetoric. Nothing in politics is ever permanently settled, especially when it comes to taxes and tax policy. Recall how easily Mr. Harper ignored his own fixed election date legislation when he deemed it convenient to do so.
From a public policy viewpoint, the spending spree outlined in the last several days is a disaster of the first magnitude. It represents a complete repudiation of the sort of sensible fiscal discipline that Canada needs, not just to overcome the economic difficulties of today, but more importantly, to meet the colossal challenges now looming large on our horizon as the baby-boom generation gets set to retire, for the most part ungracefully.
Politically, the picture is equally grim – at least it is for the Conservatives. No doubt many Conservative supporters, perhaps even a majority, will continue to rationalize the party’s relentless abandonment of conservative principles as the price of retaining power, but a growing number – including several prominent Conservative activists and Conservative backbenchers – are beginning to wonder at what point the pursuit of power becomes an unseemly end in itself, rather than a means to an end. Many in this group, especially the veterans, believe that Mr. Harper crossed that bridge a long time ago.
The Liberals, on the other hand, have to be feeling pretty good right now. Not only do they have a new and better leader (thanks in large part to the questionable strategic decisions of Mr. Harper and his closest advisors), but they have managed to maneuver the Conservatives into endorsing, with the exception of a few details here and there, the fiscal plan they laid out in the recent election campaign. Better yet, from the Liberals’ point of view, is the fact that Mr. Harper and his finance minister themselves are defending the neo-Keynesianism of their political opponents, exhorting free market champions in their own party to eschew “ideology” and adopt a more “pragmatic” approach to governing. It seems not to have occurred to them that the free market is the least ideological approach to economic development since it's the only option that lets people decide for themselves where, when and how they will spend or invest the money they earn.
It’s hard to imagine talking points being more devastating to the conservative cause and more supportive of the Liberal party’s own communications objectives.
It’s time for principled, grassroots conservatives in Canada to come together and remind their leaders that the Conservative Party belongs to them, and that they believe it should represent common-sense conservative values when it is in power as well as when it is in opposition.
Conviction, and the vision that flows there from, may not win every election, but it will win more elections than the quasi-liberal “do-whatever-it-takes” approach of successive Conservative leaders of the past.
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