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Since the Conservatives have morphed, maybe Canada needs a new party
By MICHAEL DEN TANDT
Perhaps Canada needs a new conservative party. Because let's face it, we're not getting much in that regard from the current crop of Conservatives.
Federal MPs have long indulged in the odious practice of staging grip-and-grin photos as they pass out giant cardboard cheques from the people of Canada. Lately some have taken to decorating these with a Conservative Party logo. Our money -- their logo. This drew a stern reprimand from the prime minister himself.
Please.
We're in hock this year to the tune of $56 billion. There are signs the economy is bouncing. But the uptick, most economists will tell you, has little to do with the spending unleashed by the Conservatives this year, after prodding from the Liberals and NDP. It is almost entirely a function of near-zero interest rates. In other words, it would be happening anyway.
Many of the stimulus projects underway across Canada are welcome. Recreation centres, arenas and the like. But it is painfully obvious that not all needed to be as lavish as they are turning out to be. There is a rush in every Canadian town to find novel ways to spend federal money. Make hay while the sun shines. Or, to borrow an older expression: Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we may die.
Death in this case is figurative, not literal. Many of us remember when it last happened. It was 1995. The cuts imposed by Liberal finance minister Paul Martin that year were draconian. The Canadian military budget was gutted. Transfer payments to the provinces were gutted. The resulting provincial spending cuts were brutal.
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff likes to don the mantle of a fiscal conservative. He wears this like a scarf, something easily cast aside if it gets too warm. He favours the language, I suspect, because he likes how it sounds. There's something noble about calling on Canadians to tighten their belts, to sacrifice.
Sacrifice in this context is the result of stupidity. In the 1980s Brian Mulroney spent excessively and put us in the hole, $42 billion in his last year in office. He conjured up the GST to pull us out of that hole, which it did.
Pandering
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, pandering to our narrow self-interest, lopped two percentage points off the tax, thereby immediately setting us on the road back to deficits.
Remember: There was nothing remotely romantic about what happened to the Canadian Forces in the 1990s. On some bases every second light bulb was unscrewed to conserve power. Soldiers carried bag lunches into the field -- to save on box lunches. Equipment, trucks, planes, ships, were allowed to rust out. It has taken years for the CF to recover.
Nor was there anything noble about what was done to Canadian hospitals in the 1990s. The layoffs. The bed shortages. The labour unrest.
Ditto in education and the public service.
Those cuts were a direct result of excessive borrowing and spending when times were good. Ah, but times aren't good now. Really? National unemployment remains in single digits. Home sales are up. If times really do get bad -- if, for example, runaway debt in the United States leads to runaway inflation, which leads to a sharp spike in interest rates -- then the current rebound will be short-lived.
What will our government do then, with the bank already broken?
If only there were a party on the scene now to carry the fiscal conservative banner. You could call it -- the Reform Party? Hmm. Now that has a nice ring.
http://www.edmontonsun.com/comment/colu ... 6-sun.htmlPlease, oh please, split the right vote again...
CKA Uber 
