Since they took power in 2006, Stephen Harper's Conservatives have made a habit of turning their list of grievances against the Liberals into an operating manual.
In opposition, they decried the centralization of power in the Prime Minister's Office. But since assuming power, they've taken that philosophy to unprecedented extremes, turning every possible parliamentary and public service channel into a means of amplifying a message dictated in its entirely by Harper.
In opposition, the Conservatives railed against secrecy and unaccountability. Since taking power, they've similarly taken the Liberals' bad habits to new lows - reaching the point this week where they're demanding an immediate vote on a budget at a time when even their own ministers aren't well-enough informed to answer simple questions about its contents.
And in opposition, the Conservatives made hay out of patronage and corruption among their Liberal predecessors. But as some of us suspected at the time, the only part of the Liberal culture of entitlement that really irked them was the "Liberal" prefix. And so today, the line "failed Conservative candidate" on a resume effectively guarantees a high-paying, low-effort job of one's choice.
But those well-documented turnarounds are a drop in the bucket compared to how the Conservatives have turned another long-time complaint on its head.
Over three decades after the fact, the driving force behind Western Canada's antipathy for the Liberals remains the National Energy Program. And there's good reason why the policy still provokes as much backlash as it does: a government with no oil-patch representation rammed through a fundamental shift in direction with obvious adverse effects on exactly the people who were excluded from any decision-making authority.
A more principled party that drew much of its strength from the anger behind the NEP might have been expected to avoid making the same mistakes as the Trudeau Liberals - consulting closely with everybody affected by its decisions to ensure nobody perceives their interests as being trampled without an opportunity to be heard, and making a conscious effort to avoid imposing unduly damaging policies on any region.
But instead, the Harper Conservatives are implementing the mirror image of the NEP in substance through an equally flawed process.
Now, the people being shut out of any say over resource and economic management are British Columbians concerned about the health of their land and water if pipelines and tanker traffic are given a green light without proper review, Ontarians losing manufacturing jobs due in part to an inflated dollar directly linked to an obsession with resource development, and Quebeckers seeing refineries shut down as the Conservatives devote themselves to shipping raw resources out of the country as quickly as possible.
Instead of dictating that western resources be reallocated to serve the rest of Canada's economy, as Trudeau did, the Conservatives have decreed that the rest of Canada will be a secondary consideration whose main purpose is to provide public relations and financial support for the western resource industry.
Sadly, our provincial leaders, including Brad Wall, have lined up in lockstep with Harper - with only Alberta premier Alison Redford offering the slightest recognition that it's a problem even for the oil industry if its advocates and actions are seen as unreasonable.
But it's not too late for the Conservatives' prairie base to recognize that what was wrong when imposed on us by Trudeau is no more acceptable when inflicted on the rest of the country by Harper. And the best hope for a national economic vision that actually treats Canada's wide range of regions and industries equitably lies in our willingness to tell Harper not to repeat Trudeau's mistakes.
Original Article
Source: leader post
Author: Greg Fingas
In opposition, they decried the centralization of power in the Prime Minister's Office. But since assuming power, they've taken that philosophy to unprecedented extremes, turning every possible parliamentary and public service channel into a means of amplifying a message dictated in its entirely by Harper.
In opposition, the Conservatives railed against secrecy and unaccountability. Since taking power, they've similarly taken the Liberals' bad habits to new lows - reaching the point this week where they're demanding an immediate vote on a budget at a time when even their own ministers aren't well-enough informed to answer simple questions about its contents.
And in opposition, the Conservatives made hay out of patronage and corruption among their Liberal predecessors. But as some of us suspected at the time, the only part of the Liberal culture of entitlement that really irked them was the "Liberal" prefix. And so today, the line "failed Conservative candidate" on a resume effectively guarantees a high-paying, low-effort job of one's choice.
But those well-documented turnarounds are a drop in the bucket compared to how the Conservatives have turned another long-time complaint on its head.
Over three decades after the fact, the driving force behind Western Canada's antipathy for the Liberals remains the National Energy Program. And there's good reason why the policy still provokes as much backlash as it does: a government with no oil-patch representation rammed through a fundamental shift in direction with obvious adverse effects on exactly the people who were excluded from any decision-making authority.
A more principled party that drew much of its strength from the anger behind the NEP might have been expected to avoid making the same mistakes as the Trudeau Liberals - consulting closely with everybody affected by its decisions to ensure nobody perceives their interests as being trampled without an opportunity to be heard, and making a conscious effort to avoid imposing unduly damaging policies on any region.
But instead, the Harper Conservatives are implementing the mirror image of the NEP in substance through an equally flawed process.
Now, the people being shut out of any say over resource and economic management are British Columbians concerned about the health of their land and water if pipelines and tanker traffic are given a green light without proper review, Ontarians losing manufacturing jobs due in part to an inflated dollar directly linked to an obsession with resource development, and Quebeckers seeing refineries shut down as the Conservatives devote themselves to shipping raw resources out of the country as quickly as possible.
Instead of dictating that western resources be reallocated to serve the rest of Canada's economy, as Trudeau did, the Conservatives have decreed that the rest of Canada will be a secondary consideration whose main purpose is to provide public relations and financial support for the western resource industry.
Sadly, our provincial leaders, including Brad Wall, have lined up in lockstep with Harper - with only Alberta premier Alison Redford offering the slightest recognition that it's a problem even for the oil industry if its advocates and actions are seen as unreasonable.
But it's not too late for the Conservatives' prairie base to recognize that what was wrong when imposed on us by Trudeau is no more acceptable when inflicted on the rest of the country by Harper. And the best hope for a national economic vision that actually treats Canada's wide range of regions and industries equitably lies in our willingness to tell Harper not to repeat Trudeau's mistakes.
Original Article
Source: leader post
Author: Greg Fingas
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