It was in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Halloween convention speech and we failed to recognize it. It is there in his disdain for Ottawa and its elites. It is there in his lack of a forecast for the future. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has just two years left in Ottawa and he is going to leave nothing but the political version of scorched earth.
Scorched earth is a basic principle of warfare. When you have to withdraw, you leave nothing for your enemies. You burn the crops and the shelter. You remove or kill all humans and animals and leave the corpses to rot and spread pestilence. It is considered an exigency of war.
It was left to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty to lay out the plan for all to see in his fall financial update. The Minister took his pitch to Edmonton to further disrespect our national capitol. Flaherty proudly told his western audience how he would defeat the deficit and even produce a supposed surplus. He told them that, given his druthers, he would prefer to use that surplus to pay down debt.
But he knows that surplus is false. It will be from the further gutting of approved government programs. It will be gained by not spending approved funding that is needed to run the country. It will be gained from the illusion of delayed payments. It will be there for the federal election in 2015. It is a surplus that does not exist.
What might have been a surplus will have been swallowed by the three “P’s” of the Conservative plan: Previously Promised Programs. Remember the much touted plan to double the tax free savings allowance for Canadians. Remember the promise of family income splitting in our taxes. And the surplus will vanish. All is illusion.
And the reality is that Stephen Harper expects his government will be replaced after the 2015 election. He cannot win because his centre cannot hold. His party cannot gain a foothold in Quebec and Ontario’s economy is struggling because he failed to protect it. He did not mind the store. Harper was too busy flying around the world in his personal Airbus A310 with his personal hairdresser. He found no votes in Kuala Lumpur.
Our crops must grow again and our hopes rest with Harper’s successor. There is going to be a reality check and no ideology can solve the financial mess left by the Conservatives. Canada’s taxation system will have to be stood on its head and shaken. We need the nickels and dimes that fall from the inverted pockets of the nation. We need new thinking. We need decency and resolve. It will not be solutions of elites from east or west. It has to be a peoples’ solution.
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Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry
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