The election is still seven weeks away and already Canadian voters have been thrown so far down the rabbit hole into Wonderland by the major political party leaders that down is up and everyone is running to stand still, as confused as poor Alice was.
For all of the numerous faults of both Stephen Harper and the Conservatives, at least they are consistent in their stances. It won't be clear until the night of Oct. 19 if Canadian voters like what Harper and his gang are selling this time around but there's no confusion about what's being offered.
Meanwhile, it coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs time in the camps of the federal Liberals and NDP. Roll over in the grave, Jack Layton, for your successor, Tom Mulcair, is pledging an NDP government would balance the federal budget from day one in office. Meanwhile, Pierre Trudeau is also spinning six feet under because his son Justin says the Liberals plan to run small but still significant deficits for several years until the economy (hopefully) turns around.
Layton, a fierce lifelong social democrat, would never have made such a vow without first assuring his supporters that he would do it by slashing business subsidies, increasing corporate tax rates and bringing in hefty tax hikes for individuals making more than $100,000 a year and/or households bringing in more than $200,000 a year.
Mulcair, however, is far more of a political opportunist and doesn't want to do anything to discourage Canadians looking at supporting the NDP for possibly the first time in their voting lives. He's being coy at how he will fulfill his balanced budget pledge, even though NDP policy makes it perfectly clear how it would happen.
To make matters even more ridiculous, Mulcair has criticized Trudeau for having the gall to not balance the federal budget. The NDP promising to operate the federal government in the black and then criticizing others for not doing the same shows how successful Harper has been at framing the political discussion and how far to the right, at least on the fiscal front, he has moved the country. To put the NDP's balanced budget pledge into context, it would be like the Conservatives committing to massive government investment into renewable energies with a surcharge on the oil and gas sector to pay for it, all in the name of climate change.
Meanwhile, in other news, flurries are in the forecast this afternoon on the central plains of Hell.
Before the weather, let's return now to the multiple reports of pigs flying across Canada.
Pierre Trudeau left the Quebec NDP to join the Liberals in his day and now Justin Trudeau is vowing to be the tax-and-spend federal party in Ottawa. Harper must be having a good laugh on the tour bus as Mulcair and Trudeau accuse each other of pandering for votes with promises that seem to not reflect their party's principles.
And if the antics of Mulcair and Trudeau aren't crazy enough, bring in Margaret Atwood. The Canadian literary giant is no friend of Rob Ford or Stephen Harper or seemingly anything that doesn't involves hugging trees, books and CBC employees but there she was in Saturday's National Post, declaring that Canada needs a man of the future, a man like...wait for it... Preston Manning.
Yet one more example of how successful Harper has been at shifting the political views of all those who would despise him and his polices. When someone like Atwood thinks Canada needs Manning, not Ed Broadbent or even Joe Clark, for God's sake, well, the left in Canada have truly lost their way. To be fair, turns out Atwood has dabbled in the old-fashioned progressive conservatism of Progressive Conservatives throughout her life and insists that Manning comes from that gloried tradition. Somehow, she glosses over the fact that it was Manning, not Harper, that put the nails into the PC coffin with the rise of the Reform Party.
Atwood is naive if she honestly believes there are more differences than similarities between Manning and Harper. The two conservatives may disagree sharply on environmental protection and oil and gas royalties, but they remain on the same page on virtually everything else. If anything, Harper is a moderate compared to Manning on social issues but that gets forgotten when Manning appears on panels with David Suzuki and they agree on land-use and conservation policy.
The fox that agrees with the hens that the chicken coop is too small is still a fox.
The right in Canada under Harper knows exactly what it stands for. Meanwhile, the left is so confused, some of them think Preston Manning is now their pal.
-- Managing editor Neil Godbout
