On being Fiscally Conservative

"Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives."

-John Stewart Mill

Friday's Mop and Pail editorial asked if the Conservatives would be fiscally conservative in their next budget.

Darn good question.

I certainly hope not.

It's a curious term, "fiscal conservative." If we look at the recent history of Fiscal Conservatives, it is a history of high deficits, public investment in capital intensive, and low-return public policy, while cutting social investment in things like education, welfare and healthcare.

Regan, Thatcher and Mulroney - all fiscal conservative in their day- ran up massive deficits and national debts. The result was that centrist governments who inherited these deificits found themselves fiscally ham-strung, it was left up the 'wet-kleenexes' to balance the books.

Here at home, there has been much hullaballoo about Bob Rae's fiscal record. He was, in the Thatcher/Regan/Mulroney tradition, a fiscal conservative, in that he managed to run up quite a nasty deficit.

In his defense, he did so in some pretty awful economic times in Ontario, driven prinicipally by a high-interest policy from the Bank of Canada and an inherited mess from Liberal David Peterson.

But what he didn't do was take a $5.5B surplus, and turn it into a $2B deficit in some most incredible growth periods Ontario has ever known.

No, if he'd managed that monetary nadir, he would not be running for Liberal leadership, he'd be Stephen Harper's new finance minister, Jim Flaherty.

And so will the Harper Conservative be fiscal conservatives?

For the love of God, I hope not.

Harper is right, even though he's wrong

There has been much discussion on allowing the media to record the arrival of Canadian soldiers who have been killed in Afganistan. The Harper government has decided to ban media from CFB Trenton when the bodies of the slain were disembarked and returned to their families.

Predictably, the media have taken great offense to this, suggesting it smacks of censorship, etc, and accusing the Harper government of fear that such images would reduce support for the war in Afganhistan.

But the ban is the right decision.

I cannot begin to imagine the pain that a family must feel upon the return of a slain sibling, child or spouse. It is a moment that belongs to them, and to those whom they invite to support them, not the uninvited lens of a camera.

Certainly there are some families who would like to have the arrival covered. However, there are others who do not. Unfortunately, often they do not arrive on separate flights. (In the event of a single casualty the families wishes should come first, but the government has chosed to ignore this exception.)

The embarkation of the bodies is done in full public view. The funerals and memorials are covered or not covered at the request of the families. There is no overarching need to compromise the desire for privacy for the 11 o'clock news.

That aside, it is interesting to note that you're hard pressed to find any commentator, conservative or other, who can credibly suggest that this is the reason for Harper's new policy.

And that is the sad part. The first hundred days have been so riddled with flip-flops, crass opportunism, principles of convenience, that the PM can't credibly make the case for decency.

And that is a truly sad state of affairs.

Fun with Harper and Photo Shop

I've been looking for an excuse to figure out how to put pictures in my posts, and well, also to figure out how photo shop works... I also enjoy taking the mickey out of Stephen.


Oh what fun... now if only I can figure out how to put it on my sidebar, I'll be set....

... and a big hat tip to Entozoan Film for the idea....

Who is Dalton's techie?

Because they should get a big fat raise.

Take a look at this.

It's the Premier's new interactive website. And it's quite something. In fact, it's a lot like watching TV - only better, which what the internet should be.

Of course I am on high-speed, I shudder to think what this will be like on dial-up, but who cares? Those dial-up dudes bug me...

I have no idea who did this, but Bill Graham, if you're reading this, go take a look.

I never thought I'd say this, Bill, but you need to be more like Dalton...

Constitutionally speaking...

The cat is out of the bag, Harper is setting the course for a constitutional debate.

This little trial balloon should be interesting.

Given that there was no discussion of this during the election and it's curious absence from the Conservative platform, it's a surprise to everyone.

It's a cynical strategy to set the table for the next election.

You don't need a Strategic Counsel poll to realize that the 5-P's aren't going to set anyone's passion on fire, in fact, they are likely to infuriate a lot of people.

So Stephen realizes he needs something else to talk about, and to corner the Liberal's into something which pits them against the provinces. Mulroney did this with free trade, and it worked.

Why do I say this is cynical?

Well, you woke up this morning, had breakfast, took the kids to school, and went to work.

What bugged you about today? Likely nothing.

But if something bothered you, what about your day so far required a constitutional change?

Likely nothing.

You might have wanted a better car (a tax cut), or less traffic (infrastructure), or a better school (provincial jurisdiction), a more challenging job (SDC) or maybe a prettier husband/wife (Wife Swop...)

But none of these require a constitutional amendment. Fixing them does have an important role for the federal government, but none require a constitutional amendment.

Unless you want to enshrine the right to hold secret cabinet meetings... yeah, that's what this is about...

Otherwise, rolling the dice with the future of the country is as nutty as it gets...