Canada: The Political Situation 2013

It seems to be a problem that the Canadian Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) does not live up to their own ideology.  In this essay I want to go through their party platform and beliefs of the CPC and see how and what they have been doing since they took office in 2006, to see how their actions compare to the words and rhetoric.

According to Wikipedia, it is very difficult to nail down the beliefs the CPC holds.  For starters, they want to more closely match US foreign policy - sort of - except we know when the US intervened in Syria and Libya, Canada allied with the Americans only as cheerleaders - didn't actually do much of anything.  They foster strong ties to China and are aggressively pursuing trade agreements with Europe and other countries around the world.  Although the actual benefits of these trade agreements and why they benefit Canada are not talked about specifically, we are told repeatedly that it is good for Canada's economy and we will benefit more as a result in some way.

The Conservatives also mention in their platform that they are in favour of abolishing the Senate, but in actuality they advised to appoint Michael Fortier to the Senate in 2006, and filled all 18 seats that were vacant in 2008.  Every Canadian with a television, radio or internet connection knows how that is working out for them at the moment.  Still in the midst of the Senate Scandal, they are refusing to call an inquiry, declining options to have people connected to the scandal testify, and generally trying to act like it is all going to go away on its own, when their own rise to power happened as a result of the Liberal Sponsorship Scandal in the early 2000's. That idea of SCANDAL, how to deal with one and how to avoid one, should have been the first lesson they had learned before taking power, yes?  Nigel Wright, one of the 4 people whom the conservatives condemned as the ONLY people involved in the scandal, even he has not testified .  In fact, I could not come up with much of anything he has said or done since writing the $90,000 cheque of his own money.  Apparently he is a shrewd, intelligent, rich guy who actually recruited Steve Harper when the current party was being formed.  Harper conversely promoted Nigel to the party Chief of Staff after winning party leadership.  This guy is not an idiot, and he is very well connected by his past to the current Prime Minister.  The fact that he is not saying anything speaks volumes to me: this guy wants to avoid the limelight at all costs, so he can do whatever it is he does innocuously in the background.  It is very difficult to pin his activities down, but he doesn't seem to concerned about having his name dragged through the mud in this case.  Obviously there is still quite a bit going on, and he seems very capable of avoiding any sort of news reports.

Next I want to mention one huge campaign promise the CPC had was at the time of the Sponsorship scandal and wanted to implement measures to hold government to account, including the parliamentary budget office.  Instead of the PBO being an aggressive watchdog, nipping at the heels of government and keeping things in line it seems like some sort of sad pathetic inbred toothless cur, with a failing liver and weak ankles and probably also crossed eyes.

Another big campaign promise conservatives like to toot their little tug boats about is lower taxes.  As it turns out, the government decided to tax income trusts in fall of 2006, effectively breaking one of their election promises.  The government did lower taxes federally, but announced that the growth of future health and social transfers to the provinces are tied to economic growth.  This forces the provinces to raise their own taxes via methods such as the HST, and doesn't really solve any of the problems associated with lowering taxes.

Conservatives like to use the phrase stewards of the economy - this branding seems pretty effective because anybody I talk to who admits to voting conservative seems to think that they are fiscally confident and wise managers of wealth.  They also think that any other political party will destroy Canada's economy, but there is no actual basis to think that way.  I can say that Auditor General Michael Ferguson was unable to find 3.1 billion dollars in antiterrorism spending between 2001 and 2009.  THEY LOST 3.1 BILLION DOLLARS.  The conservatives can also take full ownership of the fact that they misrepresented the costs of the f-35 jets, which as it turns out would end up costing $25 billion plus maintenance.

On another topic conservatives can be heard bleating about is making a smaller government - Since in power Harper has actually increased the size of cabinet to 39 ministers.  Combine that will expansions of the senate, the addition of the PBO, and the bloating of the deficit by funding government stimulus, the government has only gotten larger during their period in office.

I cannot argue the Conservatives have perused related to their platform is the promotion of traditional religious and cultural values .  Harper has firmly taken the "progressive" out of conservative, by making a huge stink about the royal wedding, queen's jubilee, re-re-naming the Royal Canadian Air Force and Navy...because we want to go back to remind ourselves we are a British colony?  Exporting our resources on behalf of a country whose only gifts to the world are banks, stock exchanges and pharmaceuticals.  Canada is now choosing to define itself by the past in a way that is probably not at all flattering to First Nations, some of whom are getting a flashback of colonial times in the process of protesting shale gas exploration on the East Coast.  By and large many Canadians seem to be enjoying this retro-ification of Canada's culture, possibly because it is the only few things that really are associated with Canada.  They certainly can't tout environmentalism or peacemaker stereotypes that previously defined Canada (although I'm not sure exactly when this was - maybe in the 70's and early 80's?).  It would be interesting to talk to young Canadians to see how they define themselves within the context of their country's culture, because that is a mighty big black box to me.

One 'victory' conservatives like to talk about is their fulfilment to reduce gun controls and scrap the long gun registry.  This one will not be put to rest easily, in part because Quebec and the CPC don't quite get along, but also within the historical context of the Polytechnique shooting in December 1989.  That province is still fighting the gun registry abolishment in court, and trying to hang on to the records that they have already collected.  While the issue seems to have passed in the rest of Canada, Quebec seems willing to fight tooth and nail to hang on to these records in any way or court possible, and if they can establish even a small foothold in keeping those records the Conservatives will find it very hard to shake it by 2015.

Another campaign promise Harper has done with his whole heart is in the promotion of the energy and gas sectors.  When I found out the Canadian government  was spying on Brazil and reporting the information to oil companies, it became very evident to me who Stephen Harper's bosses are.  Wouldn't a genuine conservative want to "conserve" their environmental resources and protect it from outside influence, rather than selling them off and destroying our other resources in the process?

On the promise of enhancing crime and law enforcement,  the senate scandal has made one thing clear: the CPC are doing everything in their power to hinder justice and obscure the truth - criminals in this case are given a blind eye, and they don't see anything wrong with that, no need to call an inquiry, no need for people involved to testify and find out what is actually going on.  Of course conservatives will push for higher sentences for blue collar crimes such as drug possession, shoplifting and vandalism, while the less visible but much more costly white collar crimes such as industrial espionage, environmental regulations, manipulations of the stock market, property and construction, tax evasion, and crimes by politicians have got no such attention, no new bills passed, no tightening of loopholes to bring the rich and powerful to the conservative party perception of justice.  Those super-prisons they were bragging about starting in 2009 will not be housing Rob Ford or other powerful individuals or corporate decision makers who profited in the 2008 market collapse and job destruction.  Instead they will hold petty thieves, small time drug dealers and the mentally ill while the owners of the prisons profit from the influx of criminality.

Internet surveillance is finally becoming a reality as the release of documents by Snowden revealed the extent of collection and analysis of users' internet usage both in the United States and Canada (and presumably most or all other countries with internet access).  For a long time surveillance of all kinds has been getting a hard push, under the pretence of terrorism.  Whether or not the loss of all privacy is "worth it" in the long run is an issue that will only grow as the surveillance becomes more elaborate and more intensive.  I'm sure all sorts of dirt will be found on who is sleeping with who, who is using which drugs, and other (mostly) victimless crimes are brought to light and a perverse sense of justice, as the number of criminals increase and another excuse given to fill up super-prisons, I'm not sure what point has to be reached before a serious debate begins on if this is the direction people generally want to be headed in.

As I've already mentioned, there is still a stalwart base that will vote conservative regardless of the obvious criminal activity and lack of transparency on the part of the CPC in their time running the Canadian government.  The few conservatives I have spoken with and comments I have read express that they feel the CPC is their only choice in Canada's electoral system, that other parties will "ruin Canada worse" or squander Canada's resources more so than what is already happening now.  I can't say with any certainty that the Liberals or the NDP would manage spending and the economy any better than the Conservatives have, but nobody with any fairness can say they will manage things any worse, either, since they actually haven't been given an opportunity to.  Overall the Liberals had a VERY good spending record during their long period running the country, and the NDP have yet to have been given a chance FEDERALLY.  Being as scrutinized as they would be, it seems to me like an NDP minority would ensure a very responsible spending policy, since it is such a contentious issue constantly being parroted by the conservatives as the holy grail of government responsibilities.  I would argue that until they have been given a chance, you can't know with any certainty how good or badly they would perform the task.  And given that the CPC has squandered every opportunity to create a transparent, responsible, accountable government, we can't collectively sit on our hands and say "well we can't hope for anything better", because we CAN do something better: what needs to happen is that our very fundamental system of government is the problem, and by changing the way the government works in a more broad sense external of which political party is in office, we are capable of bringing a new concept of government in to the world, a system where people can make their voice heard and actually bring back democratic values to a system that is obsolete, broken, and thoroughly corrupt.  In future posts I hope to discuss ideas for Canada's political future in more depth.