A colleague of mine asked why I am so hard on Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives. Why don't I say something good about them?
The answer isn't that I am a leftist or that I am anti-conservative. Some of my best friends have strong conservative beliefs.
My issue with Mr. Harper and his brand of Conservatives is their fundamental hypocrisy. This is perhaps most evident in the recent pronouncements that they have made about the recession we are mired in.
"It is China's fault."
"It is the world economy."
"It is the price of oil."
What they are saying is "It is not our fault."
But contrast this with the myriad of television ads we have been inundated with for the past seven years telling us that the Conservative's Action Plan is working and our economy is in great shape.
"Canada's Action Plan is growing the economy," we are told.
Or Mr. Harper repeatedly telling us his government has been lead us to economic success.
You can't have it both ways. If the government is responsible for the success of the economy, then it also has to be responsible for its failures.
A younger Mr. Harper had very different views on the way to deal with the economy. Consider the following excerpt from Hansard for March 25, 1994:
"I would point out once again to the hon. Members that the period of massive deficits, structural deficits, ongoing deficits and accumulation of debt has not been a period in which we have produced jobs and economic growth but one in which we have restricted and stifled it. I once again would ask the government to re-examine its view of the link between financial mismanagement at the federal level and job creation."
Hear! Hear! But wouldn't it be great if the young Mr. Harper could talk to the present prime minister?
He went on to say: "The ministers often assert that there is a positive link between deficits and job creation. I think the evidence is increasingly otherwise." Yet we have been running deficits for the past eight years, racking up billions of dollars in debt, all in the name of job creation.
Consider that Mr. Harper inherited in 2006 a booming economy growing at three per cent per year and with unemployment at 6.6 per cent and dropping. The government was running a surplus of $13 billion and the debt was $492 billion and falling.
Fast forward and the fiscally responsible Mr. Harper has seen an increasing unemployment rate, low new job creation that focuses on the low paying service sector, an economy in recession, and increase in the national debt to $615 billion and climbing.
Maybe he should have listened to himself - and not just on economic matters.
On the same day in Hansard, a young Mr. Harper rose on a point of order to denounce the government's use of an omnibus bill.
"The particular bill before us, Bill C-17, is of an omnibus nature. I put it to you, Mr. Speaker, that you should rule it out of order and it should not be considered by the House in the form in which it has been presented."
Why?
"Mr. Speaker, I would argue that the subject matter of the bill is so diverse that a single vote on the content would put members in conflict with their own principles."
Yet, the older Mr. Harper introduced Bill C-38 in 2010 that completely gutted Canada's environmental laws, cut $36 billion from health care funding, weakened Canada's food inspection agency through job cuts, and made it harder to qualify for EI benefits.
The only good thing about Mr. Harper's approach to omnibus legislation is that the diversity of proposals he links into one piece of legislation are all bad. Voting no to everything in the bill doesn't result in a conflict of principles.
I recognize being a politician is difficult and people do change over time but Mr. Harper is not learning the lessons of his own past.
Since this is a column with lots of quotes, I thought that I would add one more by Martin Luther King: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
I would add that they will not be judged by their choice of religion, their physical handicaps, or the people that they associated with.
And I would say: I have a dream that all of our children will one day live on an Earth where they will not be judged based on the people they love but only by the content of their character.
May we see a day when Gay Pride Parades are no longer necessary.
