It’s always been my opinion that IF – a big word in political circles these days – politicians would once in a while ADMIT that a policy decision that they are currently pursuing is just making the problem worse, we might finally get around to having a government that works for all, not just the extremes of the “left” or “right”.
However, when a once pilloried Conservative Party leader is ousted from his own “safe seat” by an electorate trying to tell him that his policy ideas don’t “fit” within the Canadian mosaic, you might get the feeling that maybe, just maybe, he’d get the message.
Apparently, not…
I don’t get it – it’s fairly obvious that the Canadian public listened attentively to what U.S. President Donald Trump was saying about Canada future as a nation, read the polls giving the Conservatives a 20 per cent or more lead over the Liberal Party, paid considerable attention to what Pierre Poilievre was economically offering Canadians (“Maple MAGA”), noticed who would definitely support the Conservatives come Election Day (Corporate puppets praising the MAGA agenda, childish truck drivers ”protesting” by demanding an immediate change in government while urinating on Ottawa’s Bank Street), then couldn’t wait to vote for Carney’s Liberals to resuscitate themselves into the once omnipresent NGP, the “National Governing Party”.
During that same election, many Canadians must have also realized that unlike former PM Justin Trudeau, Mark Carney at least knew which head was tasked with creating sound economic policy – which then begs the question as to “Why did the Conservative’s Governing Council even allow Poilievre to make that cliché, buzzword-filled milquetoast acceptance speech filled with policy one-liners that failed to convince voters to support their party in the April 28th debacle?”
The answer to that question is relatively simple: the typical Conservative’s capitalistic “bible” maintains that an economy works best only when an individual or business offers the market products or services within a competitive environment, its quality performance and price point satisfy the purchaser’s needs, AND there is profit to be made so as to maintain product placement without undue hardship to the enterprise. The problem then becomes one of survival within this market and knowing how best to maintain or improve product performance, or better still to modify production so as to find the capacity to integrate into emerging and more competitive environments.
It’s in this latter stage of capital market survival that western Conservatives lose their capacity for critical thinking. Sensing change, they address the issue in a weirdly religious fashion not unlike Martin Luther’s: maintain your faith and resist all temptation to change what has to the moment has brought success – especially if that change is being demanded by government. Eastern supporters on the other hand, maintain their faith in the principles of capitalism, but take a more Calvinistic approach by attempting to distill compatibility between their economic principles and regulation, “so long as it is government by those of standing in the community” – that is, operating within a freedom loving and democratic society with ideals that do not interfere with their own religious (economic) tenets.
Our politicians are finally being forced to face the consequences of stubbornly maintaining an economic path that threatens our environmentally related future. However, Big Oil has resisted this need to change, choosing instead to utilize its corporate profits and lobbyists to resist the federal government’s requests for it to modify its manufacturing processes to reduce carbon gas emissions or capture these gases for sequestering. Instead, the industry has launched a full scale “information” campaign, first hiking prices so as to retain current profit levels, then negotiating royalty cost reductions with governments highly dependent upon the continuation of its operations within their jurisdictions. Finally, when consumers begin to rebel at their newly incurred product costs, the industry shamelessly maintained that such increases were the direct “fault” of governmental interference, excessive regulation and taxation.
One can hardly blame the average Canadian voter for wanting to simply tune out political discussion instead of having to listen to Poilievre to again try to fire up the Conservative’s campaign apparatus, which primarily consisted of trolls proliferating the Disinformation Highway extolling the virtues of MAGA insight into the reasons for our economic failures. The only “newness” to this approach is for the Conservatives to introduce a new buzzword, “affordability” as a multipurpose way to capture the thoughts of consumers worried about everything wallet-related, be that housing costs, grocery prices or the failure of wages to keep up with inflation.
If any of these tactics sound even vaguely familiar, one need only turn one’s attention southward and absorb the comedic manner by which Donald Trump is managing his “America First”, isolationist economy. Despite having already trebled the American deficit through excessive tax cuts being granted to his oligarch billionaire (and one “trillionaire”) class, the Conservative caucus is still rife with MPs such as Bowmanville – Oshawa MP Jamil Jivani, who decided to take a trip down to Washington after Poilievre’s leadership was confirmed just to tell his good friend and Vice President J.D. Vance that the Conservatives were now in position to restore “civil” relations with Trump and the U.S. economic elite in general.
It’s almost impossible to believe that there still exist individuals who truly believe that Trump, Guinness record holder for bankrupting prosperous businesses (including a casino) won’t render a similar, fate to the” American dream”. Yet here he goes, putting the American market on an energy pathway that is driven by carbon fuels (including coal), destroying relationships with former allies, underhandedly taxing Americans through the imposition of tariffs on imports from other nations, all while threatening the sovereignty of nations such as Canada, Greenland, Venezuela, and now Cuba – and NOW further threatens harm should we diversify our economy by signing trading agreements with China or having second thoughts about purchasing a flawed F-35 when Sweden is offering us a return to aeronautical grandeur we lost the moment Canada purchased Bomarc missiles from the U.S. because Buffalo NY residents were afraid of sonic booms created by the Avro Arrow?
“Affordability” is an issue that Conservatives neither understand nor know just how many of unresolved subtopics their Governing Council would be loathe to touch. For instance, when they move to tackle our deficit, are they going to prosecute supporters caught hiding wealth offshore to avoid paying taxs? Will they impose a “wealth tax” on the wealthiest of Canadians, a move that over 60 per cent of Canada’s super-rich even agree should be done?
I’m just starting to scratch the surface here; we haven’t mentioned strengthening our northern borders, diminish the role the United States plays as our major trading partner, much less how we should strengthen legislative language to more clearly distinguish the difference between what is a “right” versus what is a “privilege” – and yes, there are many, many more such items…
Ken MacDougall is a retired teacher and former candidate for the federal NDP. His column appears on Saturdays.
