Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Friday, March 22, 2013

Just what did Flaherty mean?

A reporter noted a slight contradiction in the finance minister’s rhetoric. It was just after 2:30pm on budget day, and Jim Flaherty had arrived at the Government Conference Centre across from the Chateau Laurier to give his pre-budget speech press conference to the waiting, locked-in, media.

For months, if not years, those on Parliament Hill and around the country have listened to the finance minister and his cabinet colleagues issue lectures about the rest of the world. Euorpe, in particular, comes under great scrutiny for its current financial hellscape. “If some of the European countries could achieve the balance that Canada has, it would be ideal for those countries,” Flahety told a Commons committee back in November. “We’ve been pressing Europe for a long time, the eurozone countries, and sometimes we’ve created a chill in the room by not going along with everybody.”

Canada, in contrast, is in good shape. Depending on how you look at it. But with such a decent international standing, financially, the reporter asked Flaherty Thursday, why didn’t the government go a bit easy on everyone this time around? Why bother still trying to hit that 2015 target of a balanced budget, when a target of a few years later could suffice and not be overly damaging to the country?

“We could have done more,” Flaherty replied. But, the past, you see, is a dangerous thing.

“But I lived through 2007 and the credit crisis in 2008, and the crisis in the real economy in 2009,” he listed, remembering the days following the election of the first Conservative minority government – a victory due in part to the party’s promise to reduce the GST and, subsequently, the cash flow that came with those extra two percentage points.

Flaherty was still going. He remembered “having to do a very large stimulus budget in January, 2009. So I have direct experience with all of that.”

Well, don’t we all, in some respect? But, never mind, the point was this: “I want our country to be in a very solid fiscal position in case, in the future, we have another crisis,” he said, explaining that they’re simply “inevitable from time to time.” Canada can reach its goal of a balanced ledger by 2015, he went on a moment later, without having to “slash and burn.” The choices that have been made in this year’s budget, he said, are “moderate.”

It’s worth asking, then what message Flaherty really meant to convey. That the government could have done more suddenly sounded a lot less like a statement about financial competence or control, and more like a threat. You think this is bad? It could have been worse.

Back in 2008, the Conservatives decided to adopt the line that Canadians were just simply “better off with Harper.” It seemed an almost unbelievable line – almost satirical political comedy. But it fit. It was simplistic, direct, and largely lacking in nuance. Just like the party, in other words. It’s a line that seems to have stuck, a subconscious slogan the party has carried with it into its majority government. That is, no matter what, it could always be worse. We might still be paying 7 per cent in GST.

Original Article
Source: ipolitics.ca
Author: Colin Horgan

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