Well, there’s no denying that a new day’s dawning for Canada. Unfortunately, it has all the makings of a dull, grey, drizzly, sunless day where we can look forward to eating stale leftovers washed down with weak, lukewarm coffee. Ummm, ummm good. Let’s tuck right in.
The new, tiny, minority government of Stephen Hapless and his band of merry conservative men delivered a Throne Speech with all the gustatory richness of boiled beef and mushy peas. Nothing for Everyone might have been the theme for Tuesday’s predictable display of historical insignificance. With a government in name only, a nation tired of treading political water but particularly weary of inconclusive elections, Little Stevie Blunder took no chances in charting the course of his government. Forget the maps, navigator, this ship ain’t goin’ nowhere.
So this is the chance the Reformers, Alliancers, Conservatives and Progressive Conservatives have been waiting 13 years for? Kind of makes a guy wish Big Jean Chrétien had decided to tough it out a few more years.
Conservatives Announce Bold Plan – Canada Sleepwalks Into Future the headlines might just as well announce.
Consider, if you will, the paradigm-shifting, envelope-pushing, outta-da-box brashness of Little Stevie’s Five-Step program for Canada.
Step One: Make government more accountable. To whom and for what, one wonders. If there is a constant in the political universe as immutable as gravity is in the physical world it is this: There ain’t no such thing as an accountable politician. Oh, there’s no denying it’s a quaint idea, one that resonates deep within the soul of every citizen who’s ever wondered how the chowderheads running the country could be so duplicitous, self-interested and wholly unaccountable except at election time when you know, deep down in your heart, every single lip movement brings forth another false promise.
But whatever smoke puffs up from the Conservatives’ efforts to make government more accountable is going to have come from mirrors, not fire. From their humble beginnings as Reformers to their current incarnation, the boys and girls of the current government are the heirs of good intentions. Those would be, in case you’ve forgotten, the good intentions to forsake those bloated, ill-deserved parliamentary pensions, perks and luxurious goodies eschewed by the early Reformers… virtually all of whom are drawing parliamentary pensions, riding around in limos, voting themselves raises… well, you get the picture.
But even if you grant them that particular fall from grace, trying to get your mind around Accountability on the one hand and David Emerson on the other is just not something a non-politician can do. Reconciling being strong on accountability and still embracing the turncoat, non-democratic, non-accountable actions of the Conserveral Mr. Emerson is a trick that makes turning lead into gold or harnessing cold fusion seem like a cakewalk. In other words, it calls into question this government’s willingness to even pay lip service to accountability, let alone make it a cornerstone of their Plan(sic).
Step Two: Guarantee wait times for our fraying but deeply-loved health care system. What’s the problem here? You know and I know we’re already guaranteed wait times. That the time we’re guaranteed to wait might be quite possibly the rest of our lives is a problem this visionless government isn’t going to make measurable inroads in changing. Excuse me while I clear my throat….
Step Three: Cut the GST. Oddly enough – at least oddly enough for our visitors from south of the border where tax cuts at any cost are a political chestnut – Little Stevie can’t get a majority of Canadians excited about cutting the GST. He can get a majority excited about an accountable government spending tax revenue more wisely and not squandering it like drunken Liberal sailors. Sorry sailors; it’s just a saying.
Okay, here’s a conceptual puzzle. I’ve got six bucks in the left front pocket of my jeans and four bucks in the right front pocket. I take two bucks out of my left pocket and put it in my right pocket. My right pocket is now clearly better off than it was. But am I? Most Canadians understand this parlour trick; that’s why there’s lukewarm acceptance for the political reality and significance of Step Three, so let’s move on to….
Step Four: Get Tough On Crime. Every single statistic gathered and reported by Statistics Canada clearly indicates this about crime: it’s down. All varieties, all locations, across the country. The only crime stat that’s up is the murder rate in Toronto and it’s marginally up after troughing at a 34-year low.
So why does Robosteve want to get tough on crime. Because it’s another meaningless pander to the scared, urbandwellers who have trouble differentiating between reality and fiction. People: Stop watching CityTV news! It’s still safe out there.
Getting tough on crime is the Conservatives’ equivalent of the Liberals getting tough on guns. It’s a bottomless pit where money disappears into well-intentioned, unnecessary, meaningless government programs funded by the tax dollars the wholly unaccountable government is going to steal from our left pocket to make up for the GST they’re putting into our right pocket. It’s almost as meaningless as…
Step Five: Bucks for Breeders. So instead of ploughing money into daycare so parents can ignore their children for the bulk of the week while they mindlessly pursue the Great Canadian Dream – more cars, more vacations, more tax dollars sent to Ottawa so they can get tough on crime – the very accountable Conservatives are going to give them $1,200 bucks for each kiddie under 6. Gee, makes me wanna go right out and claim Zippy the Dog is actually my son.
Looking over this landscape of bold ideas one question screams out for an answer: Where did Stephen Harper lose his balls? Just looking at the man, you know deep down in your heart, he lost them somewhere. How else to explain the lifeless, humourless Doughboy pudge he’s become? He shows all the vitality of a neutered dog – sorry Zippy. Is this really the sum total of what conservatives have been waiting for all these years?
Where’s the vision that’ll take Canada into the brave new world of heightened global competition? Where’s the challenge to the Canadian people to compete for the 21 st century jobs the Indians, the Chinese, the Americans and the rest of the worlds’ peoples are harnessing their efforts to excel at? Where’s the dare to become something other than hewers of wood and haulers of water? Stevie seems content to go blandly into a future where the country can continue to pin its hopes on the same things it’s been pinning its hopes on since the 19 th century, at least if that future is unthreatening enough he can continue to oversee a moribund minority government.
C’mon Doughboy, go big or go home.
