The Conservative Party has made a lot of hay over the billion dollar boondoggle of the Liberal gun registry, a tool that has debatable benefits for law enforcement agencies, and does more to curtail illegal ownership of 40-year-old long guns in the hands of Toronto Star writers than street gangs.
The Liberal gun registry came to symbolize everything that is wrong with big spending, big government prying into the affairs of law-abiding citizens. There is little doubt that the move led to some migration of support over to the Conservative Party, who originally posed a fiscally conservative, more libertarian kind of government.
Well, those days are long gone now, as Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party have managed to shatter all previous perceptions of being fiscally restrained. The 2009 federal budget promised $30 billion in support to the Canadian economy in the form of “stimulus” spending, equivalent to 1.9 per cent of our total economy. But The Fraser Institute later argued that stimulus spending accounted for just 0.2 percentage points of economic growth between the second and third quarters of last year, and nothing from the third to the fourth.
Then there’s the inexplicable $1.1 billion “security summit”, a boondoggle so massive that not even former PMO spokesman Kory Teneycke could contain his disgust. The amount is so far beyond the understanding of most Canadians, that we have become relegated to shaking our heads in disbelief over the wastefulness of spending that kind of money on an international schmoozefest of little real value.
Now the good old Right Honourable Stephen Joseph Harper is signaling a readiness to commit a billion dollars to the G8 maternal health program, sending all that money out of the country for foreign aid at a time when Canada is still reeling from a $40 billion deficit last year alone. At the rate the government bandies about billions of dollars, it might be a relief to get a more fiscally conservative leader back in the halls of power. Even Paul Martin didn’t open the purse strings this wide.
The sad thing is that to find any semblance of fiscal conservatism these days, one would have to open the pages of the Globe and Mail and read former Conservative strategist Tom Flanagan’s latest diatribe on Stephen Harper’s big government.
The fact is that most of the recent controversies surrounding the Conservatives have all been owed to pandering to woollyheaded Liberal ideas of subsidizing green technology, extending the social services blanket to the third world, and cultural events like Toronto Pride. Had the Conservatives cut these extraneous tentacles suction-cupped to the udders of the government long ago, we could have avoided the expectation that the responsibility of the government is provide an endless flow of milk and honey.
The “old” Stephen Harper opposed business welfare and public subsidies. The “new” one loves them so much that he’s set up regional development agencies for such economically challenged areas as Southern Ontario.
Then there’s the fact that the Conservatives are dabbling in appeasement tactics for other government-dependent industries, such as the “green” technologies that have complemented Al Gore’s snake oil tour so well. Rahim Jaffer wouldn’t have been mucking around in the lobbying business if there wasn’t a lot of money to be made in peddling the global warming racket. This, even as Great Britain’s scientific community is undergoing a revolution of sorts on the issue.
I suppose it’s a bit of an addiction to be able to get in front the cameras every day and make spending announcements of a billion dollars. It not only makes the government look like it’s doing something, but that it “cares”. Unfortunately it’s also sending Canada right into the poor house. By the end of the 2009 budget fiscal outlook, Canada will be sitting at least $600 billion in public debt, meaning that up to $20 billion in expenditures each year will come from interest payments alone.
And no matter how many times Stephen Harper says he’s going to decrease the size of the government, review departmental spending, or start tightening the belt, it never happens. All we get is boondoogle after boondoggle. The man who was brought in with lofty ideals about spending restraint and transparency has been just about as contrary to them as possible.
“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
As you say… basically it’s appeasement.
Just when the country really seems ready for a PM that would control government spending. When will we ever have another chance for this?
Sigh.
At this point the only reason left to vote for Harper and the CPC Is that they are not the Liberals or the NDP. I guess he’s settling for this.
Harper has crossed the line, spending nearly a billion dollars on security for world leaders for what amounts to nothing more than a three day food and wine festival is absolutely appalling. I’m not voting in the next election, I don’t vote for Harper I voted against the greedy out of touch snotty liberals well congrats Harper you are now one of those elite taxpayer wasting Liberals.
I see that this has really disappointed the base. He really needs to get his act together if he wants to hold together the core support.
The Chretien Liberals spent well over $300 million in 2002 for the two day G8 in Kananaskis, of course a G8 in Huntsville combined with the G20 in 2010 in Toronto is going to cost.
Want to save a billion a year?
Scrap the CBC.
No argument there. But what I essentially hear you saying is that the Libs are as bad as the Conservatives.
While I agree that Harper is spending as much as an Liberal government would be, I think he has to at this time. It is definitely appeasement money to show he is not the scary, right-wing, social program cutter that the opposition constantly tries to make him out to be. He’s had to fight most of the media for over four years now to prove he’s not this idealogue PM.
After the next election, I believe we’ll see the *real* conservative Stephen Harper. One way or the other, I think it will be his last term and he’ll start being the fiscal conservative that most of us want him to be. Overall though, I think he’s done the best balancing act he can to date, given the circumstances.
No, what I’m saying is these summits have enormous security costs, Canada is a G8 member and as such takes it’s responsibility in providing for security when it is the host country, as do other member nations when it’s their turn.
Not to worry Adrian. Harper has a full-proof plan on how to make up for the 1 Billion dollars being wasted on the G8 and G20. He’s already got 300 million from the Ismaili religious head, next in line will be the Saudi Wahhabi with maybe 500 Mil for another mosque, then maybe the Iranian guy will put forward another big chunk for building one big giant mosque for the Shias and thus we will have a surplus of funds from the “religion with compelling history”.
It’s all good. Money will be flowing in. He has already opened the flood-gates accepting the Aga Khan’s money.
Here’s his speech.
http://www.akdn.org/Content/994/Speech-by-Canadian-Prime-Minister-Stephen-Harper
You assume his base are fiscal conservatives.it’s more likely they are social conservatives.
In any event, his base is not going anywhere. He walks on water and they are not interested in holding him accountable for anything.
If security is paramount, then why not hold these things in the middle of the Atlantic on an aircraft carrier? I am sure the food would be better as well.
Perhaps I should be thankful I am not a Danish taxpayer footing the bill for Copenhagen, but that wasn’t just a photo-op announcing things already hammered out in advance. This is. Hard to justify it.
He doesn’t walk on water. Three years ago I would have said he did.
Times change. Too bad.
Copenhagen was an abject waste of money, time and space.
Glo-Bull Warming is the biggest fraud ever perpetrated in human history.
Gayle- sort of like Liberals who will never turn on (or maybe in) their masters; many of whom should be in jail for stealing tax payers money..
*****
I also highly doubt that social conservatives make up the Prime Minister’s base..whereas I can say for certain that out of touch Marxists make up the NDP’s base.
Be interesting to see if the next country spends $1.1 billion. It’s getting to be like hosting the Olympics. Except there’s no benefit for the taxpayer slobs.
Minority pandering. Another original Liberal trait.
Again, the Conservatives will never reach majority because they betray conservatism. Being a socialist, that’s what Gayle simply can’t understand about conservatives – they will actually abandon the governing party when it loses its way. Socialists can always rely on their sheep no matter how criminal or corrupt the party becomes because the ends justify the means.
They only abandon when another conservatve party shows up. Reform Party? Social conservatives. Wildrose Party? Social conservatives.
Well, he did not blink to rip us off $35bln dollars in Income Trusts fraud, boondogle. Why would he blink on wasting just like pocket change, ONLY $1bln?
Just imagine, if this guy ever had a majority government. It’s scary, and he really is.
“he” would be Ralph Goodale……….
When you wrote this, I expected the usual rapid denunciation by the “rote” CPC supporters. Instead, there’s much less than usual.
The CPC should take this as a sign that the reliable social conservatives are not the only votes they should be courting. Especially since they can’t deliver what the SC’s want, without losing a shit-load of votes.