The current election is shaping up to be a contest between two guys running for Santa Claus. While many pundits breathless write about the "differences" between the Liberals and Conservatives, I’m having a difficult time finding any.
Both parties are guaranteeing that it will be a frosty Friday before a "two tier" health care system rears its ugly head in Canada. Everyone, including the Supreme Court of Canada, agrees that our much-vaunted health care system is broken. Yet both the Liberals and Conservatives are promising voters more of the same government health monopoly under which patients are currently suffering and dying in droves.
If there is to be any meaningful change in the current state of Canadian health care, then somehow more physicians need to be recruited into the system and a climate that is friendly to new physicians will have to be created, which means they should be able to make the kind of money that doctors elsewhere make.
Stephen Harper promised voters that if he gets elected, he would cut the hated GST from the current 7% to 5%. My fellow columnist art Weinreb’s article supporting the Conservatives cutting of the GST notwithstanding, I believe the Conservative campaign promise is yet another attempt at pandering to voters. Yes, it’s "brilliant" in that in making the announcement Mr. Harper is reminding voters of past broken promises made by the Liberals to eliminate this tax. But I am a firm believer that if you want to help create prosperity in a country, the best way to do so is to create an environment that’s free of confiscatory taxation. The best way to do that is to cut corporate taxes as well as income taxes, which will give the nation a bigger bang for its buck, as it will encourage new investment and thus create more jobs.
Cutting a tax on goods and services doesn’t have the same effect on the economy that cutting income and corporate taxes have. Even the Liberals know that.
Then Harper announced that under his government every family with a child under the age of six would receive a stipend of $1200 per year per child in addition to whatever other benefits a family is currently receiving to assist that family with child care expenses. Why only children under six? and why only $1200 per year? $1200 per year will buy a family one medium pizza with four toppings per week in most areas.
Certainly Harper’s child care policy makes more sense than the Liberals’ in that it doesn’t advocate the creation of a monolithic child care bureaucracy. But frankly, I believe it’s too expensive, as is the Liberals’ plan.
What’s Harper going to be promising next? Will he be passing out government-made sandwiches to the nation? Will he promise financial assistance for people wishing to purchase cars, something akin to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation? He can call it the Canada Vehicle Procurement assistance Plan, which might get Buzz Hargrove to change his mind about having the CaW support the Liberals.
No one wants to see the Liberals gone more than I do. But to have them replaced by a party that will commit to the same policies as the Liberals is not my idea of a change of government. In my opinion, the Conservatives are running downhill, just like water, as it presents the path of least resistance.
The wonderful thing about living in a democracy is that it gives voters clear choices, unless, of course, the happen to be living here in Canada.