The best laid schemes of mice and Hair often go for nought. (Robbie Burns said that much better.) Fixed election dates for Canada were an easy promise to keep back in 2006 but they have never really worked well for the Hair. With a looming election date of October 19 for this year, the Hair must want to call the whole thing off.
And he had such lovely plans. He had everything dovetailed so nicely. He started with all those ambitious goodies to use the planned surplus this year. He announced them last November. Finance Minister Joe Oliver would start the election year with Jim Flaherty’s planned surplus but leave nothing for the opposition to promise their goodies.
But is it all a game to befuddle the voters? Despite his avowal at year end less than a month ago that the October 19 date is firm, speculation is again rampant that the Hair will take the country to the polls before July 1. And under normal circumstances it is what any other Prime Minister might do.
But not the Hair. He wants everyone to think he is keeping his word—until he breaks it.
Does he really want that nebbish Finance Minister Oliver to stand up in the House of Commons in April or May and admit that the vaunted surplus is just smoke and mirrors?
Does the Hair want his promises to the rich of income splitting and child benefits to be the cause of further deficits?
Does he want to admit that his resource-based economic strategy for Canada is just a deck of cards?
And what is going to happen in the next few months that could change things?
Does the Hair have a better crystal ball than anyone else?
And you can hardly blame any of this on that stuffy little Mr. Mulcair or on the darling of the middle class, Justin Trudeau. The Hair brought it all on himself. He said ‘tough’ as the east lost more of its manufacturing base. He was counting on tar sands for synthetic oil. He was counting on pipelines. He wanted Northern Gateway and an expanded Kinder Morgan pipeline to fill tankers in British Columbia. The TransCanada Keystone XL would reach the Texas Gulf ports. The old Enbridge and TransCanada pipelines to the east coast could fill even more. And there is back-up in rail and trucking. Who knew what problems would arise?
All that the Hair knows for sure is that fixed election dates for a country with a parliamentary system of government is a really dumb idea.
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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry
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