Common sense

"Those who now complain about oil and gas not getting to market need to look in the mirror. The challenges facing pipeline construction need to be faced, discussed and resolved. But the approach of the last 10 years has failed. Douglas Eyford, the adviser appointed by Mr. Harper, has set out the reasons in his two reports: a failure to engage, a failure to consult and a failure to persuade. These are the failures that need to be overcome."

BOB RAE

Partisans, get a grip: Canadians need honest talk about deficits

Bob Rae is a lawyer with Olthuis Kleer Townshend, teaches at the University of Toronto and is the author of What’s Happened to Politics?

The rant in these pages from Preston Manning on the federal government should all be taken with a large shaker of salt. One might have hoped that at least a glimmer of perspective and non-partisanship might have taken hold of the president of the modestly titled Manning Centre, but no such luck. This is a full-blown attack.

First, to suggest that the current federal deficit compares with the situation in the early 1980s is just nonsense. Do the math. Second, all governments, of every stripe – left, right and centre – came to grips with what was undeniably a serious financial challenge facing both the country and every provincial government in the early 1990s, and with the benefit of sustained growth in the United States saw major improvements in our economy, and a healthy change in our fiscal health.

The Martin government’s defeat in 2006 was not a repudiation of the remarkable fiscal record of the Liberal government. Ironically, Stephen Harper’s election prompted a big increase in spending (a minority government needs more friends) and the decision to cut the GST, a nod to populism and a raspberry to every economist and fiscal conservative in the land, respectively. The crisis of 2008-09 made the Conservatives sudden converts to Keynesianism, and $150-billion was added to the federal debt. Let me be the first to say that running deficits in those years was wise, prudent, sensible and the right thing to do, given the severity of the crisis.

What is now emerging is the extent to which necessary spending was consistently cut in the final years of the Harper government in the rush to get back to balance, no matter what the underlying condition of the economy or the needs of the most vulnerable in the country.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/partisans-get-a-grip-canadians-need-honest-talk-about-deficits/article28946045/?cmpid=rss1&click=sf_globe