by arthur Weinreb, associate Editor,
Tuesday, March 1, 2005
When Finance Minister Ralph Goodale brought down the budget last Wednesday from the way Stephen Harper spoke, it had been his budget. It wouldn’t have been surprising if Harper had bought himself a new pair of shoes to wear on the occasion.
Harper was quoted as saying, "It’s closer to being a Conservative budget than a Liberal budget, so there’s no way we’re going to have an unnecessary election." He sure didn’t waste anytime letting Paul Martin, seemingly his new best friend know that there was no chance that the budget would bring down the government. Now if a Jean Chrétien or a Paul Martin made a statement similar to Harper’s, the pundits would be instantly debating whether that was what they meant. Not so with the Conservative Party leader, who has never shown an inability to say exactly what he means.
There is no doubt that there were aspects of the budget that conservatives would agree with; increased spending for the military, small personal income tax cuts, a phase out of the corporate surtax and increasing limits for RRSP contributions. But it was hardly a "conservative budget".
It was a Liberal minority government budget that gave just enough to all the opposition parties that they could justify not bringing down the government and forcing the country into an election that no one wants. But for a party that is supposedly conservative, getting so excited about a budget that will set aside $1 billion in a fund somewhere for Kyoto and earmarks $5 billion so that Canada’s head nanny, Ken Dryden, can take care of the nation’s children in state run institutions leaves a lot to be desired.
a scary thing about Harper’s labelling the budget as conservative is that NDP leader Jack Layton said the exact same thing. as leftward leaning as Harper is going, they still can’t both be right. But we can understand Layton’s describing the budget as conservative. He would label any budget as conservative that didn’t include some pot for every pot and a windmill in every driveway. Looking at it from the perspective of Jack Layton and his fellow travellers, the budget was indeed conservative.
By stating his support for the budget so soon after it was tabled (if not before), Harper ceded the role of opposition leader to Layton. The NDP leader and Bloc Quebecois leader, Gilles Duceppe can now vigorously attack the budget and vote against it, knowing that there are enough votes so that the budget will pass and the country will avoid the election that none of the parties wants at this time. Oh, Harper will yip and yap about sections of the budget, but so what? By making it clear at such an early stage that he will support the vote, he’s given up any possibility of wringing concessions from the Liberals in return for not bringing down the government.
Harper’s actions since the merger of the PCs and the Canadian alliance make the predictions of the doomsayers that the new party would be taken over by former Reform Party rednecks and Christian zealots, laughable. Harper is not only becoming a "progressive" conservative; he’s drifting further to the left with each passing day.
Stephen Harper is not a stupid man, something that cannot necessarily be said for the prime minister. He knows exactly what he is doing. He has given up any vestige of conservative principles that he had in order to gain power. He’s racing to the political centre to get the support of those Canadians that he needs to attract in order to form a government; the mushy middle in Ontario that are looking for an alternative to the corrupt Liberals and the soft nationalists in Quebec. and in order to become the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, he’s willing to give up any and all conservative beliefs that he may hold.
at the rate that he is going, Harper’s ability to have brought about the merger between the Progressive Conservatives and the Canadian alliance will go down as his final hour. Since he is so good at this merger thing, perhaps he will take a shot at merging the Conservatives with the Liberals. In many ways these two parties are closer together than the PC and the Ca parties ever were. This will never happen of course; the Liberals are quite capable of obtaining and holding power without needing Harper’s help.
February 23, 2005, the day the budget was brought down was a sad day for all small "c" conservatives in Canada.