The Guelph Mercury - December 2, 2008
By Colin Kenny
Stephen Harper wore sheeps’ clothing during the election campaign, then kept the fleece on for six weeks after the election.
With Barak Obama doing all that warm and fuzzy bipartisan stuff down in Washington, Mr. Harper wasn’t about to jettison his guy-next-door sweater. Last week the prime minister’s office kept the image going by putting out the word to journalists that the Conservatives had adopted a new religion: civility.
Not only would Mr. Harper be decent and civil with Canadians during the impending monster recession (the Conservative ideology of small government would be cast aside in the name of a national emergency) but his ministers would also be decent and civil with opposition MPs in Parliament – working to save the nation in Commons cause.
Get thee behind me, malice scheming and partisanship.
Then, on Thursday, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty stood up to speak. Wham! All teeth, no wool. That speech let down every support group the government will need to guide Canada through troubled waters – the opposition parties, the bureaucracy, the provinces and Canadians whose jobs are threatened.
Some of what Mr. Flaherty had to say was just plain goofy, like the stuff about “we’re going to have five straight budget surpluses except they’re going to be deficits.” Most of the rest he had to say was either mean-spirited, wrong-headed or trivial. Triviality doesn’t go down well in a crisis.
Here is just some of the hollow grandstanding that was forced to stand in for meaningful content on Thursday:
Mr. Flaherty took credit for the fact that Canada is in better financial shape than most other countries. Very funny. Canada’s strong debt-to-GDP ratio was built on the back of the Chrétien government’s austerity program, which (during good economic years, when it didn’t hurt so much) reduced federal debt-to-GDP from 71 percent in 1995 to 23 percent last year.
Mr. Flaherty boasted that Canada jumped out ahead of other economies by reducing the GST from 7 percent to 5 percent over the past few years. Big deal. Few Canadians noticed, and if anyone spent more because of reduced GST, much of what they were buying wasn’t produced in Canada. What Canada really needs is federal spending on made-in-Canada infrastructure, but the government is taking its time expanding infrastructure programs, which are notoriously slow to get going.
Mr. Flaherty – only days after it had signed a contract with its main public service union – announced that there would be a wage freeze in the public service, and that public service unions would not be allowed to strike until 2011. So what? Its biggest union had already signed and why would it want to go on strike if it had a contract already in the bag?
Mr. Flaherty announced that members of Parliament, including Cabinet ministers, would also fall under the freeze. Again, so what? What Parliament in its right mind would give itself big salary hikes in the middle of a financial crisis? And if saving nickels and dimes was the order of the day, why wasn’t the bloated 38-person cabinet trimmed down to size? Cabinet ministers are almost superfluous when all the decisions are made in the PMO.
Mr. Flaherty announced that the government will save about $27 million (when other countries are talking in billion- and trillion-dollar investments) by scrapping public funding of political parties, which currently receive $1.95 a vote for every vote they win in a federal election. This scheme was introduced by Mr. Chrétien just before he resigned to get away from large donations from corporations and unions. It helps small parties like the Greens stay afloat. It is of much more use to the Liberals and other opposition parties than it is to the Conservatives, because the Conservatives have proven themselves better at raising money. In the United States, presidential candidates have their choice of taking public funding or going for even bigger bucks from contributors. No more public funding in Canada. The savings to the taxpayer will be infinitesimally small. Another cheap shot in the middle of serious economic crisis.
This government thinks way too small to run a big country with big problems on the horizon. At big moments, the best politicians turn into statesmen. Big moments are the wrong time to shrink, which is what Mr. Harper’s sweater has clearly done.
Colin Kenny was Chair of the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence in the last Parliament. He can be reached via email at kennyco@sen.parl.gc.ca