Out of the mouths of babes – and a recently-minted Liberal – came a moment of truth last week about the state of politics and government in this country, three years after the Liberals took power.
Prince Edward Island MP Wayne Easter – a traditional New Democrat in everything but affiliation – was confronting yet one more business voice telling yet one more Commons committee that anything government can do, business can do better.
George Fleischmann, a former senior Agriculture Canada bureaucrat who has been a long-time, high-paid spokesperson for the food products manufacturing industry, was extolling the virtues of having industry control the new food inspection agency.
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“I see a move here by some in industry to get the government out of government and I think overall, government is responsible for public policy,” Easter said.
Sadly, in Jean ChrŽtien’s Ottawa, this sounded like a radical concept.
Jean ChrŽtien’s Ottawa is a place where the deficit-obsessed finance department calls the shots and where business has set the agenda for years.
Since 1993, there has been a full-scale retreat from governance.
Whether you believe in government or not, whether you are conservative or not, most Canadian voters likely would prefer to have a government which said what it means and means what it says.
How does Ottawa and the ever-so-popular Liberal government stack up?
Simply put, they are not to be trusted.
Liberals like to paint themselves as defenders of government programs and social equity against a Reform Party which never met a government program it liked.
They are half right.
Reformers do not believe the public sector is an appropriate vehicle for correcting society’s inequities.
Fair enough, as long as we remember that point when Reformers make their unbelievable promises to spend more in politically popular areas like health.
But what about the first half of the Liberal creed?
To see the Liberals as the party of public policy and creative use of government is to remember history.
Instead, this is a business government with a marvellous capacity for hypocritical self-delusion.
The Tory provinces are responsible for health care cuts while the Liberals are the party of medicare?
Consider the billions the Liberals have cut from transfers to the provinces.
Reformers would throw farmers to the whim of the market while Liberals protect them? Imagine the impact of Liberal free trade deals, support cuts and cost recovery fees on farm security, once market prices fall.
Brian Mulroney and his gang represented the ultimate in sleazy, self-serving politics? It is hard to disagree, yet imagine the spectacle of a prime minister defending a cabinet minister using government credit cards for her own benefit.
And he cannot show us the guidelines under which she is exonerated, because they are secret. Unbelievable!
