Heather's Head Explodes

No doubt the majority government secured by the Harper Conservatives has left the Canadian left feeling rather despondent.

 

Much of that, in my view, is overblown; there are legitimate reasons to be concerned about how the Conservatives have governed and will govern, but fears of a hard right hidden agenda being sprung on Canadians seems absurd.

 

Clearly, though, for those who would like to see Liberal and NDP policies being fully and quickly implemented, the prospect of four years of Conservative majority government is no doubt disheartening.

 

While I'd expect to see many left-wing columnists lamenting this state of affairs, I don't think it's too much to ask that they stay grounded in reality.

 

Apparently for Toronto Star columnist Heather Mallick, however, it is too much to ask.

 

Mallick has penned a piece for the UK Guardian's "Comment is Free" website.

 

Things start badly with the subheadline:

 

Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper is our version of George W Bush, minus the warmth and intellect

Now, in fairness, Mallick may not have written the headline or sub-headline. But for all the times I've heard Harper compared to Bush, that is the first time ever that anyone has claimed that Harper is dumber than Bush. I'm not even sure what that's based on, as Mallick's piece never attempts to argue that Harper lacks intelligence - in fact, it conveys the exact opposite. Very strange.

 

Mallick then proceeds to lay out a very grim scenario:

 

What happens now is the full-scale Americanisation of Canada, hinted at over the past seven years by Harper – he fired people who talked too loudly about this – but not acted upon because Canadians have always valued their distinctiveness from the angry country in decline south of the border.
It doesn't win votes to say you want to de-Canadianise Canada, long known as a bastion of free healthcare, destination of refugees and immigrants, and a place that worries about climate change. But Harper once sneeringly referred to Canada as a typical northern European "welfare state". He grew up in Calgary, Alberta, a western province that has long felt sneered at, and has spent his political career redressing the balance.

That's a pretty definitive prediction, based on very little other than Mallick's paranoia. But it's a prediction, so we'll have to see if time proves her correct. But here we see an obvious error: Mallick says Harper "grew up in Calgary", which might seem trivial, but is mentioned specifically to make her point. While Harper has obviously lived most of his adult life in Calgary, he actually "grew up" in Toronto.

 

Mallick continues:

 

Harper's Conservatives will pass an omnibus law and order bill within 100 days to make jail sentences mandatory for many offences, and begin building super-jails, copying a system that even its authors, the Americans, have begun to abandon. The huge purchase of fighter jets from Lockheed Martin, which was an election issue, will now go ahead – Harper says it will cost $9bn, government auditors say $39bn – as will massive military shipbuilding.

She makes a fair point on the law-and-order issue, and is at least somewhat in the ballpark in framing the F-35 debate, except she is misrepresenting the government's estimates and the estimates of the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO). As this CBC article explains, the government's estimate of purchase price plus service costs is $16-billion. The PBO's combined estimate is $29.3-billion. A significant difference to be sure, but not as dramatic as Mallick would have you believe.

 

We soon get this whopper from Mallick:

 

Corporate taxes will be cut almost immediately, Bush-style. Political financing laws will change – parties now get money for each vote – but this will end under the Conservatives, who will have a huge advantage in terms of the amount they can solicit in corporate donations.

For starters, Canada's corporate tax rates have already been cut - the Liberals and NDP had proposed to undo those cuts. Secondly, to cut them "Bush-Style" would be to not cut them at all. As noted here, the US is considering cutting its corporate tax rate for the first time in 25 years.

 

Thirdly, the Conservatives cannot have an advantage when it comes to corporate donations, thanks to the Federal Accountability Act those same Conservatives introduced (emphasis added):

 

The Conservative government's Federal Accountability Act, a key campaign plank during Prime Minister Stephen Harper's campaign for the Jan. 23 election, was signed into law Tuesday.

 

(...)

 

The legislation includes new ethics regulations and oversight, and places a cap on political donations to candidates or to parties. It also bans union and corporate donations.

There's little left after that beyond more grumbling from Mallick about "grumpy old men" and how Harper hates Canada.

 

I'd suggest that Harper's majority has finally pushed Heather Mallick over the edge, but I'm guessing that happened a long time ago.