Catch any provincial politician on the right day in this province, and they'll candidly admit that we don't really have any real conservative parties. What we have, thanks to our long experience with the personal costs of economic hardship, are parties stretched along a spectrum of what can only be called small "L" liberalism.
It's easy to understand: hardship is just too omnipresent in many parts of this country for a government to afford to be hard-hearted about it. A true conservative, free-market, small-government party just couldn't get traction here. And that - for the people of the province - is probably a good thing.
But what's interesting about hardship - especially economic hardship - is that it seems to be able to make fiscal liberals out of almost anyone.
Take federal politics: the fiscally responsible "we-won't-even-take-Parliamentary-pension" Reform party that morphed into the current Tories is, on the fiscal side at least, doing its best to out-Liberal Trudeau.
With new fiscal numbers released last week, the Conservatives are firmly on track to run the biggest deficit in Canadian history. Halfway through the year, with a combination of spending promise and falling revenues, the Harper Conservatives are currently $28.6 billion in the red - by April, we should actually meet the dismal target of $56.2 billion in the red. Quite the performance for a party that always talked balance sheet first, and social spending second.
But these are difficult and trying times, you say. Well, exactly.
Fly to Edmonton right now, and you'll see huge highway bridges and a light railway line under construction, the kind of large infrastructure project that brought cheer to the hearts of many a Trudeau-era cabinet member. Take the 401 out of Toronto, heading west, and you'll see more road work, bridge work and earth-moving equipment than you might think possible.
Go almost anywhere in this country - from Victoria, B.C. to Twin Rinks in St. John's - and you'll see more federal-government-cash-for-infrastructure signs than you might think it was possible to nail up.
It's the kind of scenario that must make old-school, hard-line conservatives gnash their teeth - but at the same time, with the private side of the economy in a shambles after the global financial collapse last fall, there weren't really a heck of a lot of options.
The only question is whether, when times get good for everyone else, we'll see the parties on the right side of the spectrum go back to the tried-and-true of wringing money out of the funds for the less fortunate - once the less fortunate are once again a small enough portion of the electorate not to carry a dangerous number of votes.
Let's hope not. In the meantime, that's the cost of real hard times for you. It can make fiscal liberals out of any government.
With this province's past experience, we could have told them that years ago.
Victims of circumstance
- Published on December 2nd, 2009
- Published on July 1st, 2010
-
Staff ~ The Telegram
Catch any provincial politician on the right day in this province, and they'll candidly admit that we don't really have any real conservative parties. What we have, thanks to our long experience with the personal costs of economic hardship, are parties stretched along a spectrum of what can only be called small "L" liberalism.
It's easy to understand: hardship is just too omnipresent in many parts of this country for a government to afford to be hard-hearted about it. A true conservative, free-market, small-government party just couldn't get traction here. And that - for the people of the province - is probably a good thing.
- Number of views : 224
- Rate
- Top of the page
Comments
-
- Huh?
- - July 2nd, 2010 at 13:27:30
'it was the Liberals on the federal level (fiscal Liberals? maybe not so much) and Liberals and NDP on the provinicial level, that first started registering surplusses.' Too bad NL didn't have one of those Liberals.
-
- WTF
- - July 2nd, 2010 at 13:25:26
Show me someone who thinks Liberals are better than Conservatives or vice versa and I'll show you a fool. They're all the same.
-
- NLWhaLuh
- - July 2nd, 2010 at 13:23:16
Newfoundlanders are too used to government handouts to ever elect anyone who is conservative. The people who are conservative move away so they don't have to pay for those people who don't want to work and pay for those people who want to live in the middle of nowhere and be subsidized by 'da guvamint'. The smart ones move. :)
-
- Eugene
- - July 2nd, 2010 at 13:21:45
Interesting how the 'fiscal conservatives' are supposedly the ones that balance budgets. While Mulroney might not have driven Canada into the red as much as Reagan did the US, it was the Liberals on the federal level (fiscal Liberals? maybe not so much) and Liberals and NDP on the provinicial level, that first started registering surplusses. The conservative goal of small government is something that is being worked out on a permanent basis: Stephen Harper is on his way to the largest deficit in our history, Dubya sorely indebted the US to a degree that few rational minds think that they can come back from it. Fait accompli, bankrupt the government and it won't be able to pay for any social programs...part of that bankrupting surely has to come from the pensions which our admirable fiscal conservatives were going to give up, right?
-
- James
- - July 2nd, 2010 at 13:12:57
Hey, Eugene, wars ain't cheap. What would the arms, er... defence industry do without our public dollars?
-
- Eugene
- - July 2nd, 2010 at 13:09:39
And, James, the cost of warring in Afghanistan trumps the expense of locating a SAR base on the Avalon Peninsula also. Better we be killing Afghans than rescuing offshore workers, thank-you Messr Harper for setting our priorities.
-
- Huh?
- - July 1st, 2010 at 20:15:00
'it was the Liberals on the federal level (fiscal Liberals? maybe not so much) and Liberals and NDP on the provinicial level, that first started registering surplusses.' Too bad NL didn't have one of those Liberals.
-
- WTF
- - July 1st, 2010 at 20:11:42
Show me someone who thinks Liberals are better than Conservatives or vice versa and I'll show you a fool. They're all the same.
-
- NLWhaLuh
- - July 1st, 2010 at 20:08:13
Newfoundlanders are too used to government handouts to ever elect anyone who is conservative. The people who are conservative move away so they don't have to pay for those people who don't want to work and pay for those people who want to live in the middle of nowhere and be subsidized by 'da guvamint'. The smart ones move. :)
-
- Eugene
- - July 1st, 2010 at 20:05:34
Interesting how the 'fiscal conservatives' are supposedly the ones that balance budgets. While Mulroney might not have driven Canada into the red as much as Reagan did the US, it was the Liberals on the federal level (fiscal Liberals? maybe not so much) and Liberals and NDP on the provinicial level, that first started registering surplusses. The conservative goal of small government is something that is being worked out on a permanent basis: Stephen Harper is on his way to the largest deficit in our history, Dubya sorely indebted the US to a degree that few rational minds think that they can come back from it. Fait accompli, bankrupt the government and it won't be able to pay for any social programs...part of that bankrupting surely has to come from the pensions which our admirable fiscal conservatives were going to give up, right?
-
- James
- - July 1st, 2010 at 19:50:34
Hey, Eugene, wars ain't cheap. What would the arms, er... defence industry do without our public dollars?
-
- Eugene
- - July 1st, 2010 at 19:45:02
And, James, the cost of warring in Afghanistan trumps the expense of locating a SAR base on the Avalon Peninsula also. Better we be killing Afghans than rescuing offshore workers, thank-you Messr Harper for setting our priorities.
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
