A recent article in Maclean's trotted out the usual Conservative talking points, referencing the strong, stable, competent fiscal leadership and the principled stands on international issues. Anyone who was actually paying attention would have a very hard time reading the whole article without gagging. As a rationalization for why the Conservatives lost on October 19th, it only shows why they may take some time to learn much from the loss.
One FB commentator, a "CM Nancy", wrote the following in response, and I quote below:
Actually the writing is what I consider a piece of dangerous writing that will plant the seeds to brainwash Canadians that Harper and Company were the best economic managers and "Prime Minister Harper’s record is one of competent, effective, and conservative governance. "
Could not be further from the truth, but the article really wants Canadians to think it is all about the manipulation of Canadians by the political parties as to who had the better story while reinforcing the Harper government's narrative of competent, effective and conservative governance. But more importantly reinforcing the neoliberalism principles of low taxes, no deficits, balanced budgets while cutting government funding and services to facilitate sustained economic growth, job creation, and wage increases.
Take note, the audience must have no knowledge of the past. Such as Sean Speer and Ken Boessenkool bending history to make the Liberal government of the 1990s appeared to be the same kind that Harper and Government ran. "The political outcome was a durable consensus in favour of balanced budgets. The federal government ran eleven consecutive fiscal surpluses until the 2008-09 recession. Provincial governments, by and large, did the same."
If anyone follows the international news, Speer and Boessenkool are playing the same games as their counterparts across the world are playing. The politically far-right neoliberalist conservatives are waging a war against the politically left-leaning parties across the world. Bernie Sanders in the US. And Jeremy Corbyn in the UK. "“At a time of mass income and wealth inequality throughout the world, I am delighted to see that the British Labour Party has elected Jeremy Corbyn as its new leader,” U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders told the Huffington Post. “We need leadership in every country in the world which tells the billionaire class that they cannot have it all.” http://news.nationalpost.com/.../the-rise-of-jeremy...
Speer and Boessenkool - "Mr. Trudeau’s calls for “investment” seemed more compelling than our musings about “being in the black.” We were unable to persuasively argue for the concrete, real-life utility of not spending more than the government collects. A return to deficit spending, the anti-consensus, won the day."
Sure unable to bullshit Canadians in another round of austerity in the form of government social funding cuts and services. And for what? All in the name of balancing the budget? The veterans paid a steep price of not having services and donated to the cause of balancing the budget of 1.2 billion dollars. It is why the rising of the left is occurring across the world and for very good reason. The inequality - http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000408202
To which this is total bullshit on Speer and Boessenkool - "The result has more to do with conservatives’s inability, or perhaps unreadiness, to communicate the case for balanced budgets and fiscal probity. We took for granted that we won this intellectual conflict. We assumed that Canadians instinctively understood the importance of fiscal plans that reconciled." 100 % bullshit.
To which the next paragraph can only be delusional - "We must explain how a limited, less activist government promotes individual choice and creates the space for community and civil action. And we must argue that going backwards to failed ideas of the past would undermine the economic and fiscal gains that we have made. In short, it means following Samuel Johnson’s adage about how “men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.”
Hoping that the readers have no concept of what reality is and buys into the Con bait while ignoring the fact that the Harper government had the worst economic record since the 1930s.
Over at the Tyee - Let's Help Canada's Newspapers Stop Embarrassing Themselves In this post-Harper era, our democratic institutions must be fixed. Start with media. http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2015/10/30/Newspapers-Election/
"It should come as no surprise that the National Post and the Globe should rank the Harper government as having a "solid" economic record. They don't mention in their assessment the many aspects of the economy that are not solid -- aspects that affect ordinary people: unemployment, growth, job creation, youth employment, job quality, real personal incomes, inequality, or personal debt.
Those who run the country's daily newspapers reveal themselves as concerned only about "the economy" in the narrowest sense, using it as a code word for the corporate elite, the one per cent -- not the economy of ordinary wage and salary earners. They throw their support behind a government that simply facilitates economic growth by getting out of the way of business, by signing "trade" deals, gutting corporate and wealth taxes, and driving down wages."
Why the political left is rising across Canada and the indeed the world.
I came across this today, presenting the reasons why the Conservatives deserved to lose. Reasons the Conservatives seem to be avoiding. The original story appeared in the Star Phoenix on October 27th, 2015. I post it here in its entirety.
On election night, Conservative MP Brad Trost said he didn't know why his party lost; Canadians just wanted change for change's sake, he guessed. Could anyone be that clueless?
Stephen Harper's government was consistently self-serving, hard-hearted and mean-spirited. It was anti-democracy (omnibus bill, prorogation, spin - repeat), anti-transparency, anti-accountability, antipress, anti-immigrant, antidiplomacy, anti-knowledge (goodbye long-form census), anti-scientist (hello muzzling), anti-environment (only tree huggers hate C-38), anti-conservation, anti-CBC, anti-culture, antifreedom (only terrorists hate C-51), anti-oversight, anti-Obama, anti-UN, anti-Palestinian, anti-gay, and anti-aboriginal.
It was pro-gun, prowar, pro-business, pro-oil, and pro-Israel (one-sided support, regardless of the diverse views of Jews and Israelis, let alone the world).
Alternative opinions, dissenting views, and provincial premiers were ignored or ridiculed. Harper's MPs were minions who read from scripts.
For Harper, business trumped science, nature and compassion; photo ops trumped action; punishment trumped rehabilitation, authority trumped dissent, and lies trumped truth especially during election campaigns (the brothels are coming). Throw in Harperappointed corruption-prone senators, self-benefiting electoral changes, voter suppression, financial hits to retirees, cynically targeted tax breaks, millions wasted on self-promoting condescending government advertising.
Those were just a few items in their well-stocked shop of horrors.
It was the most polarizing, fearmongering, partisan and hypocritical government ever. The Conservatives were looking out for themselves, not Canadians. Any means justified their ends.
Harper's style was cruel and vindictive. The Harper years have done irreparable damage to Canada. Why were the Conservatives booted out? The real question is why it didn't happen sooner.
W.G. Potter
Saskatoon
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