Excerpt taken from Hamilton’s VIEW Magazine
LAST WEEK, STEPHEN Harper called the budget deal reached between NDP Leader Jack Layton and Prime Minister Martin “the most disgraceful thing I’ve seen in all my years on Parliament Hill.” Besides causing one to wonder whether Harper has, in fact, been napping for much of the time that he’s been on Parliament Hill, the comment is instructive for a number of reasons.
First of all, how is it that Stephen Harper can say at “this is not how Parliament should work,” when he had already negotiated his own deal with the Liberals as his price for endorsing the government’s Throne Speech? Apparently, Parliament should work differently in the fall when he’s the one
extracting conditions from the government than it does in the spring when the NDP is holding the cards. Or, to put it another way, parliament should work differently when he wants an election
than when he doesn’t.
But, more to the point, what is it that Harper thinks is so “disgraceful” about $1.6 billion for affordable housing construction, including aboriginal housing? Does he think that the people being housed by this plan would be better off on the street or parked on a ridiculously long waiting list? Or, with respect to the aboriginal component of the housing announcement, it could be that he agrees with one of his new star candidates, Jim Flaherty, who once made a point of distinguishing between aboriginal people and “real people.”
One also wonders what Harper finds so “disgraceful” about $1.5 billion increase in transfers to provinces for tuition reduction and better training through Employment Insurance. Every recent economic develop¬ment study that I’ve read has emphasized the importance
of ensuring that people without jobs have the skills need¬ed by employers. Moreover, with most provinces increas¬ing tuition at an alarming rate, the money for tuition reductions will ensure that more people have the ability to attend university or community college without incurring massive debt loads. And Stephen Harper finds this concept to be “disgraceful?”
What is so “disgraceful” about $900 million in new money for environmental programs and one additional
cent of the federal gas tax money devoted to public transit? Now that Harper claims to support the Kyoto Accord (which, given his previous pronounce¬ments on the subject, I find doubtful), shouldn’t he also be in favour of spend¬ing money to meet our country’s commitment?
And, given that he says that a Conservative government would hon¬our the federal government’s commit¬ment to share part of the gas tax with municipalities (another recent conversion, given that his party conven¬tion voted against endorsing such a measure), why would he find it objectionable for Ottawa to increase its com¬mitment by a penny a litre? Does he have something against buses and subways that we should know about?
I’d also be fascinated to find out what Harper finds so “disgraceful” about a $500 million increase in foreign aid, which would bring Canada in line with its promise to gradually increase our foreign aid budget to 0.7 per cent of Gross Domestic Product. Is he opposed to helping coun¬tries in the developing world to cope with famine, disease and the impact of war? Why wouldn’t he want to use Bono’s very public outrage on this issue to embarrass Paul Martin? It’s not as if he’s been particularly wedded to his own party’s stances on other issues, so why not come out in favour of increased development assistance as well?
Lastly, what is it that Harper finds so “disgraceful” about $100 million for a pension protection fund for work¬ers? There are countless examples of situations in which workers have voluntarily deferred part of their wages until retirement, only to be left high and dry when the company declares bankruptcy. Does Stephen Harper not think that these workers deserve to have their pensions protected?
There are three key reasons that Stephen Harper objects to the NDP’s ability to gain concessions from the Liberals, and neither of them has anything to do with the budget deal allegedly being “disgraceful.” Harper wants an election now, simply because he thinks he can win it. He’s wrong (if Canadians wanted him to be Prime Minister, he’d be way, way higher in the polls than he is now), but he’s not going to stop pushing for an election until he
defeats the government. Any deal that will see the budget pass robs him of the opportunity to be defeated at the polls.
Commons, Harper could have been in the position to dic¬tate the terms of the Liberal agenda (such as it is, having passed a mere two bills since the June 2004 election). But, in the case of the federal budget, Harper rolled over and played dead without so much as a whimper. Before Ralph Goodale was even done reading his budget speech, Harper was telling reporters that “there’s nothing in this budget that would justify an election at this time. I’m a lot hap¬pier than I thought I’d be. The major priorities in this budget are Conservative priorities.”
Harper hasn’t said so, but it would be easy to conclude that part of his opposition stems from his belief in even-bigger corporate tax cuts (rather than scaling back those tax cuts, as Layton convinced Martin to do). But, with even the TD Bank telling Harper that further corporate tax cuts will do little to spur economic growth or job cre¬ation, Harper’s barking up the wrong tree on that com¬plaint as well.
The bottom line is that there was absolutely nothing wrong in the deal the NDP reached with Paul Martin. Canadians don’t want an election right now, but they are anxious to see their existing government do something positive. There’s nothing “disgraceful” about that.
