Or at least that’s the verdict of Postmedia’s Michael Den Tandt after looking at the fiscal and economic update released by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. Among the headlines from that update, the government is putting off by a year its target date to return to balances budgets:
To call the deficit retrenchment a betrayal of the governing party’s fiscal-conservative wing would be an exaggeration — but only just. Last spring, amid budget consultations, hawks in the caucus argued for deeper and faster reductions, so as to allow the party to campaign on a balanced budget in 2015. They were overruled. Cuts that had originally been billed as totaling about $8 billion, were reduced to $5 billion. Now, it appears, the goal of reducing the size of government is shelved. If cuts to departmental spending beyond the ones already announced are out, and transfers to the provinces and to individuals are off limits, then de facto the era of austerity is history.
The Conservatives can do this with impunity — for them it’s all political gain, no political pain — for two reasons: First, the rest of the G7 is a fiscal shambles, making Flaherty look like a bean-counting hero by comparison. Second, there’s no one on the government’s right flank to siphon away grumpy fiscal hawks. There is no appetite in Alberta — at least not yet — for a federal wing of Wildrose. Most Conservatives I know are happy to have their team in power and winning the game.
What they can no longer credibly argue though, is that their party is the philosophical heir to Preston Manning’s Reform movement. Social conservatism is off the table. Accountability? Gone. And now fiscal conservatism is also on the way out. What’s left, increasingly, is the colour blue. This is Liberalism, with different people in charge. [Read the rest]
In my column this morning, I take note of what, by a fiscal conservative’s standard, would be a dismal record:
Returning to balanced budgets has been delayed by a year which means that when the Conservatives next face voters in the general election scheduled for the fall of 2015, their budgetary track record would make any fiscal conservative turn pale.
Consider this: By the time of the 42nd general election, the Conservatives will have presented 10 budgets. All but two will have been deficit budgets.
Add up all those deficits, and, according to the government’s own predictions, the Conservative scorecard will include adding a combined $150 billion to the national debt.
So far, the Conservatives have added a cumulative $97.6 billion to the federal debt since taking office in 2006 through to March 31 of this year.
Another $52.9 billion in debt will be heaped on that before the federal government is back in a surplus position in the year 2016-17, the first budget year of the next Parliament.
via Good news, bad news in Flaherty’s fiscal update | Canada | News | Toronto Sun.
While I agree it’s hard to see the big C-conservative in the Conservative party of Canada, I struggle with the alternatives that are out there. I’m more a small c conservative anyway so I feel a new right wing movement will only set conservatism back another generation. I mean I’m a reformer, from way before it was fashionable to even mock us in Ontario. Preston Manning may be the best prime minister we never had. But the infighting provided years of power for Liberal mismanagement.
I think we have to keep our eye as conservatives on moving the middle to the right and that gets done in moderation. It’s not what I want in the short term but in the long run it will serve conservatism well to be better by comparison (in both the world view and here at home) than to be idealists who can be painted as extreme.
The NDP looks more extreme under Mulcair then under Layton but the left is crowded with Liberals who haven’t moderated back to thier traditional middle ground.
I think this serves conservatives well in that long run but it’s hard to watch. That said a lot of small c conservatives that were comfortable supporting a Chretien and even Martin government aren’t likely to warm to another Trudeau reign.
As the left becomes more extreme it works to the advantage of the less extreme conservatives. It has worked exactly the same only in reverse for Barack Obama in the U.S. he himself may be a left wing crack pot the right wing crack pots that oppose him make him look moderate to many U.S. Voters.
I also believe the Left will at some point need to unite whether as an NDP dominant force or a revived Liberal entity. Once that happens the center will shift. I think the biggest reason the Liberals haven’t already merged with the NDP is there are still too many Liberals who haven’t left yet that will turn right not left if the road comes to a T.
Phil’s comment above forgets to include one thing.
Actual fiscal conservatives who are sick of this bunch spending us into oblivion, as well as actual progressive conservatives who find the social conservative bent of the party unpalatable, both appear to be noticing that the Green Party of Canada is very viable alternative and welcoming home for their political views (particularly for Albertans who would never consider voting NDP or Liberal)
The rabid right has tried for years to portray the Greens as a loonie-left party, but in truth, it is the party which is the most like the good ol’ PC Party of yore.
And it is not as if Ms May hasn’t been getting LOTS of good press and street cred of late.
The PC-Wildrose civil war between Conservatives has already started in Fortress Alberta, and with the by-election, it is infecting the national party, which means the CPC necessarily will bleed support as its support of the more extreme Wildrose becomes clearer with each passing day.
And that bleeding conservative vote now has some place to go.
If I was a Conservative in Canada. I’d be afraid.