With the start of the school year, students across the province are once again studying the three Rs: reading, writing and arithmetic.
For wannabe politicians, I would suggest they will also need to be concentrating on the three Rs: recession, refugees and readiness.
We are being told the economy is the number one concern in this election. If you accept that premise, then the question becomes which party is best able to manage the economy? Which party led us into recession?
The Conservative spin doctors would have you believe Stephen Harper is some sort of idiot-savant with regard to economics.
Indeed, the latest commercials for the Conservatives are saying "we know Stephen Harper is not a very likeable person but he is the only person that can run our economy."
These commercials feature one young family man scoffing at Justin Trudeau's assertion that if elected, he will run deficits. Deficits? Doesn't Mr. Trudeau know how bad that will be for the country?
The commercials also have a more senior person pointing out that we all know the NDP will tax us to death. The ads finish with a lovely old grandmother telling us that Stephen Harper is the only choice for a growing economy. Balderdash.
These advertisements take a very dim view of the intelligence of the average Canadian. They are predicated on the notion the public will forget Harper has run six straight deficit budgets and led us into two recessions. Our economy right now is in the doldrums. We have had six months of declining GDP under his watch.
Further, when all is said and done, it is likely this year will be in deficit.
It seems the Conservatives under Harper are not even close to be fiscally responsible. They have added over $150 billion to our national debt and produced the largest deficits in Canada history - both in terms of absolute and relative dollars.
If running a deficit is a reason for someone not to be prime minister then surely Harper's record should disqualify him completely.
And as a final point on recession, Harper can't even claim it wasn't his fault. The introduction of the North American Free Trade Agreement under his Conservative predecessors and his obsession with free trade agreements around the world has gutted our manufacturing sector.
Our economy increasingly relies solely on the exportation of oil. When the price drops, we all suffer. Good economic leadership would have pushed for economic diversification in an increasingly flat world.
With regard to refugees, we are now hearing from the Conservatives a grand plan to bring in 45,000 over the next... days? months? years?
While the commitment to bring in refugees from the Middle East is laudable if overdue, it has no timelines by which we can judge the government's performance.
Further, the Harper government seems to have an obsession with ensuring those sneaky terrorists don't somehow slip into the country. It is good fearmongering but is it likely? More to the point, since terrorism - by definition - are random acts of violence in the pursuit of political aims, can it ever be stopped?
We are not at war. The War on Terrorism was the biggest misnomer of the last 20 years. You can't fight terrorists the same way you fight against a country. Bombing Syria back to the Stone Ages only aids the ISIS cause. It will not defeat them.
Rather than sending Canadian soldiers into harm's way, maybe the Canadian government should pursue a smarter strategy addressing the underlying issues which stem from economic inequity and social injustice.
Maybe it is time to aid in the development of educational opportunities. Maybe it is time to help other countries to diversify their economies.
Of course, since Harper can't see the need for economic diversification at home it is little wonder he can't see the need for it abroad.
All of which brings us to the question of readiness. This has been a key feature of the Conservative attack ads for months now. Primarily they have been focused on Justin Trudeau but more recent ads have gone after Thomas Mulcair.
Again, these ads do a disservice to intelligent Canadians. They say, "Being prime minister is not an entry level position," and hope no one remembers that Harper had never served a day in government - at any level - before stepping into his role as prime minister. He had no experience as a minister of any kind. And he was essentially the same age as Justin Trudeau is now when he took over.
He has over and over demonstrated he was not ready when he became prime minister and there are many people who believe he is still not ready even now.
The three Rs are going to dominate the campaign for at least the next few weeks.
