What a difference a week makes. What a difference a month makes. A week ago Prime Minister Harper was convening a Seinfeld-like First Minister’s meeting on the economy and offering nothing and the discussions were about as equally energizing as to what to do. But he can say he consulted with the Provinces before he makes his anticipated unilateral decisions. Stelmach was right to stay in Europe and his offer to “phone it in” made sense when we see the results of what was a three hour exercise in political – not economic - process.
In the election Harper was skillfully man-handling the Liberals and manipulating the media with the old saw of Liberals being taxers and spenders. He was carpet bombing the messaging and describing the dire warnings that would result from a Liberal vote. To let the likes of Dion, as advised by Paul Martin, would be risking deficits...and that, we were told, was a risk that was not worth taking.
The Harper Cons campaign mantra was that the economic fundamental of the country is strong and Canada was going to be OK in the face of the market meltdown. He milked the symbolism of a small group of banking insiders ranking the Canadian banking system as the best of a bad bunch. A 60 second reflection on that “positive news” was hardly reassuring.
Since then Harper has made $75B of taxpayer’s cash available to those excellently run banks so they could have some bad loans bought up. This is to convince the banks to start lending again.
So far the banks have not taken up any of this Harper largess with our tax money. The prime lending rate has been cut and cut again and the Bank of Canada has also injected more liquidity in the Canadian banking system. Now he is poised to bail out the automotive industry in consort with the lane-duck Bush bunch. It all seems so Trudeauesque, who equally failed years ago to convince us with his election rhetoric and silly sloganeering that “The Land is Strong.”
Now Harper is backtracking on his infamous fiscal frugality and flirting with deficit spending coming out of the G20. Of course government should be spending for infrastructure and to create jobs and cash flow in such tough times. Especially when the banks and business will not, or cannot, step up to the plate to do so. But why did the Prime Minister mislead us during the election campaign over instituting such an obvious means to address such serious matters? Is it because Harper thinks that Kim Campbell was actually right? That election campaigns are not the place to discuss issues of significant concern to the country?
If you looked up mendacity in the dictionary you should not be surprised if you were to see Steven Harper’s picture. Harper has proven himself to be a shrewd and canny campaigner and a powerful political enforcer. He has a long way to go to prove himself as a good governor but the times are begging for such leadership. As for Harper becoming a statesman, one has to wonder if he is even slightly interested or capable of such status given his purpose and passion for personal political power.
Sad isn't it? I voted for Harper the first time around because of my dismay at Adscam. I was stupid enough to think he might carry through on his promises of more accountability. Who knew that by "accountable" he meant everyone else being accountable to him? I don't know if you're a religious man or not, but I find it striking that in the gospel of John, Jesus refers to the devil as "the ruler" of this world, whose nature it is to lie, because there is no truth in him. Those comments strongly suggest to me that those who rise in society tend not to be the good. Although I voted for him once, Harper's eyes have always troubled me. I have spent a lot of time reading eyes. When I was younger, I hitch-hiked twice across North America, and so I was highly motivated not to make too many mistakes in that respect. Yet there is a quality in Harper's eyes that I can't put a name too, and it is a quality that troubles me.
ReplyDeleteMarnie Tunay
http://fakirscanada.googlepages.com/
Ken: you of all people should know that the shrieking souls of economic collapse needed some chicken little reassurance that the Government is there while the sky appears to be falling. That the banks are not taking the money offered should give you some insight that not all is as it seems, and that there are some very real strengths in the Canadian economy, in a very real way due to strong, intelligent Harper leadership. So what if Harper offered the money. The banks don't need it, and never did. They've already written down their relatively small ABCP crap, and moved on. Remember - it is American banks coming to Canadian banks to help bail out the American banks......
ReplyDeleteOf course Ignatieff is off to a good start telling all and sundry that Harper is a liar, and charlatan, a racist, etc (curious that the guy who is pro Palestine and Pro Lebanon and anti-Israel - a democracy in the middle of the middle east monarchies - proving his racist and adjustable ethics) and I hope he continues. It didn't work for Layton, Dion and the traitor, and it won't work for Iggy either. But let him try. Rae is Dion with better english. And if vitriol and vilification of the other guy is what the LIbs think they need to get Canadians on their side - I say yippee, because the Libs still haven't spent enough time in the woodshed for all the Adscam/Shawinigate/HRDC corruption.
So now everyone is talking about the National Deficit as a fait accompli. Where is it? I don't see it. When and if it arrives, then I will worry.
At the same time we saw near record employment, trade surpluses and laudatory comments from world forums about Canada's excellent economy, which requires TRUE WORLD LEADERS of Harper's stature to achieve, Dion et al had it exactly wrong, and a nutbar plan to fix what ain't broke during the two weeks before Dion's final public decision as neither yesterday's or tomorrow's man.
So we are now reduced to seeing things that 'may happen' and 'Harper's eyes' as the current set of meaningful diatribe?
Come on folks. Try a little substance fer cryin' out loud.