It began their second full day in office, when the new government announced it would restore the mandatory long-form census. It was a substantive and a symbolic reversal of the previous government’s policy. Since then, they’ve kept their thumbs firmly on the delete key — which carried them right into last week’s budget, where they unleashed the wrecking ball.
Niqabs at citizenship ceremonies? No problem. Harper famously ran against that and lost — deservedly.
Bill C-24? The Liberals announced last month they’re going to repeal the law that strips dual citizens of their Canadian citizenship for convictions of terrorism, treason or espionage. “A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian,” Justin Trudeau declared during the campaign.
Bill C-51, the Anti-Terrorism Act? The Liberals supported it in the House last year, promising to amend it once they took office to align its security and privacy provisions with the Charter of Rights, and to curb the powers of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service and the Communications Security Establishment. The Liberals haven’t got around to tabling amendments yet, but they will.
The mission against ISIS? It’s been re-profiled from the deployment approved by Parliament under the Harper government, with Trudeau recalling the six CF-18s from their base in Kuwait and tripling the number of special forces advisers on the ground in the region from 69 to 207.
Omnibus budget bills in the House? The Liberals vow you’ve seen the last of those.
The Fair Elections Act? Done like dinner. The Liberals were the chief beneficiaries of voter pushback on that one — a massive turnout among First Nations voters and students angry at the voucher provisions in the legislation. A bill intended to suppress voter turnout actually increased it.
But if you want to see where the campaign to undo everything Harper did in office is really making strides, look to the budget.
The first of many legacy casualties is the Balanced Budget Act, adopted by the Harper government in 2015. The Liberals obviously must repeal it if they’re going to run a $29.4 billion deficit in the next fiscal year, and nearly $100 billion in deficits over the four-year course of their mandate. Not content to leave it at that, the budget turns a screw on the Conservatives, stating: “The balanced budget legislation enacted by the previous government is inconsistent with the government’s plan to return to balanced budgets responsibly, and in a manner that supports economic growth.”
(Not that the Liberals have a plan to return to balance, but that’s another story.)
Child care? The Universal Child Care Benefit was a signature policy of the Harper era, with taxable cheques of $100 per month mailed to families for each child under the age of six. Harper ran on this as one of the “Five Priorities” that got him elected in 2006. In the recent budget, the UCCB, the Canada Child Tax Benefit and the National Child Benefit Supplement have all been rolled into the new Canada Child Benefit — means-tested but tax-free.
There’s more. The Conservatives loved boutique family tax benefits. Well, income-splitting for couples with children under 18 is gone. So are the Children’s Fitness and Arts Tax Credits.
Old Age Security? The budget cancels the Conservatives’ raising the age of eligibility from 65 to 67, beginning in 2023. This, the budget says, “will put thousands of dollars back in the pockets of Canadians as they become seniors.”
The tax cut for small business? Forget about it. The Conservatives were going to cut the small business tax cut from 10.5 per cent to 9 per cent, effective in 2019. The Liberals have just cancelled that — or, as the budget states, “further reductions in the small business income tax rate (will) be deferred.” As my iPolitics colleague Alan Freeman noted in his column recently, that will cost small business $900 million to 2019. Ouch.
First Nations? What had once seemed a promising relationship between Harper and Assembly of First Nations Chief Shawn Atleo fell apart when his leadership collapsed over dissident chiefs’ opposition to the First Nations Control of Education Act — and nearly $2 billion of education funding fell off the table. Indigenous peoples’ opposition to Harper intensified over his refusal to appoint a commission of inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women. The Liberal budget provides $40 million for a two-year inquiry into MMIW and girls, and another $96 million “to support the capacity of Aboriginal Representative Organizations to engage with the government.”
That would be the AFN chiefs, as well Métis and Inuit leaders. (Sounds like a plan. A travel plan.) Overall, the budget allocates $8.4 billion over four years for Indigenous education, water and housing. That’s a huge win for Perry Bellegarde, Atleo’s successor as head of the AFN.
Arts and culture? Where the Conservatives deeply cut CBC funding, the Liberals are providing an additional $675 million to the public broadcaster over five years. “Reversing past cuts will allow CBC-Radio-Canada to invest,” the budget states. While they’re at it, the Liberals are topping up the Canada Council for the Arts by a further $550 million. In all, the Libs are increasing arts funding by $1.9 billion over five years.
Here’s another one — an undo of an undo. The Liberals are reinstating the Court Challenges Program dismantled by Harper in his first budget in 2006. Funding for official languages court challenges was later restored, but Harper had made his point. Now the Liberals are making theirs with $12 million over five years for “bringing cases to the courts that clarify and assert their Charter rights.”
So what does it say about Harper’s leadership that his legacy can be so easily dismantled, at least in the short term?
It tells us he was a transactional leader, not a transformative one. In the last half century, there have been only three transformative prime ministers: Lester B. Pearson (the flag, the Auto Pact, medicare and the Canada-Quebec Pension Plans), Pierre Trudeau (official languages, multiculturalism and the Charter of Rights) and Brian Mulroney (free trade with the U.S. and Mexico, the acid rain accord and Canada’s leadership role in the post-Cold War world).
No successor to their governments would have tried to undo those legacies. Jean Chrétien ran against NAFTA but had the good sense to endorse it on taking office in 1993. While not a transformative leader, he was a successful prime minister. Harper, in time, may also be seen as a successful three-term leader. Just not one who transformed the country.
Original Article
Source: ipolitics.ca/
Author: L. Ian MacDonald
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