A federal election is scheduled for October 2015. Provincially, Premier Paul Davis must call a general election by September 2015.
It could conceivably be back-to-back blowouts of the Tory blowhards, a 1-2 knockout punch that propels the Conservative caliphate to the canvas.
Somebody probably advised the provincial PCs years ago to heed the maxim, “Be careful what you wish for,” when then-emperor Danny Williams pronounced that his subjects should vote Anything But Conservative (ABC). After all, it’s a short step from ABC to ABD — Anybody But Davis.
Such advice, if given, was predictably ignored. And shortly, the PCs will be confronted by the second part of that famous maxim: “… You just might get it.”
It’s their own fault. In 2015, the Tories could face ABC I and ABC II.
Federally, the Conservatives have an impressive record of lies, deceit, hypocrisy, meanness and loathsomeness.
Recent reports that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is even more reviled than former PM Brian Mulroney was in the depths of his despicability was news akin to an Olympic record being broken.
In the late 1980s, it was hard to picture a PM ever again descending to that snake-in-the-grass level of vileness within our lifetimes, and yet Harper has done it.
These days, the Ottawan Tories are touting their brilliant handling of the economy, and their bringing the budget back to surplus.
They rely on Canadians being too agitated about their stagnant incomes to pay attention to the fact the “surplus” was attained via cuts, cutting and cutbacks — including, most shamefully, the closure of numerous regional offices of the Department of Veterans Affairs. But never mind that — the Tories tell us they are the friend of soldiers and the common taxpayer.
Turfing time
Meanwhile, up on Confederation Parkway, the provincial PCs are apparently eager to get out of office and start collecting their well-deserved pensions.
Davis and his lineup of third-stringers should stop bragging. The province’s booming economy is not due to them, nor even to the great Williams, although fewer people are convinced of the latter.
As one Internet wag commented some years ago, the Tories didn’t put the oil offshore.
Not only didn’t the PCs create the province’s oil industry, they don’t even understand that the oil business historically operates on a boom and bust cycle (see: Alberta). Budget projections that don’t take this into account aren’t worth the paper they’re erroneously written on.
Why do the PCs deserve to be voted out? There are as many reasons as there are voters, but here is a mere sampling: Bill 29; Muskrat Falls; ABC; Dunderdale; Manning; their F in Economics 101; Manning again; and so on.
Among that multitude of motives for turfing the Tories, voters need pick only one.
A leading candidate for the coming Conservative catastrophe has to be their decision to prevent the Public Utilities Board (PUB) from having input into the merits, or lack thereof, of the Muskrat Falls project.
The PUB’s job is to protect the interests of ratepayers. By basically firing the PUB from its Muskrat Falls job, the PCs arrogantly and unforgivably told the citizenry to shut up and trust the government, and never mind about the PUB’s supposed task of protecting the public’s interest.
From that moment on, everything about the Muskrat Falls project was, and is, suspect. The lies and manipulation will become clear — even to the project’s ardent supporters and apologists — when personal power bills start arriving in 2017.
By then, of course, the Tories will have enjoyed their pensions for two years.
Brian Jones is a desk editor at The Telegram. He can be reached at [email protected].
