A Conservative plan
The Conservatives have released their policy priorities with the new cabinet. In an effort to keep tabs on these guys for the next election, which will come sooner than we think, lets enumerate these things so we can keep score. Here they are (numbers mine):
- Cleaning up government by enacting and enforcing the Federal Accountability Act;
- Lowering taxes for working Canadians, starting with a reduction to the Goods and Services Tax;
- Protecting Canadian families and communities by strengthening the justice system;
- Supporting the child care choices of parents; and
- Delivering health care Canadians need, when they need it, by establishing a patient wait times guarantee with the provinces.
These are pretty straightforward and, to their credit, pretty much directly from their election campaign policy book. This is a nice change from the previous government - remember the "Red Book"? It was what Paul Martin and Jean Chretien used as toilet paper for 12 years. It was a pretty big book, but I might be careful to shake their right hands just the same.
There are a few troubling catch phrases in this list that I make note of for no other reason than it strikes me to:
- lowering taxes for working Canadians - What does this really mean? There are only four groups of people of working age that I know of that don't work for wage (and hence pay taxes): the disabled through accident or otherwise, the retired, the unemployed, and the independently wealthy. These groups rely on the government for certain services - welfare, unemployment benefits, medical treatments, capital gains tax write-offs, etc. Lowering taxes for the rest of us therefore implies that these guys are screwed, as I presume there is only so much money floating around. I also should add here my thoughts on the GST cut. I calculate that the 1% income tax cut the Liberals instituted, which we lose in favour of this, would save my household about $300 per year. In order to save that much through a 1% GST cut I'd have to spend $30,000 in taxed goods. I don't think that I spend that much, though I would if I bought a car each year or a new house. However, since most of us buy ugly old used houses, the lion's share of my spending money goes to pay a mortgage on an untaxed property. I have a sneaking feeling that this tax "cut" is going to cost the middle class more and save a bit of money at the extremes of the economic spectrum.
- strengthening the justice system - I never trust promises to protect me and my Toyota through strengthening the justice system, because most of my reading tells me that crime rates go up and down with the economy, not with changes in the threatened penalty. Give people jobs and they're less likely to come and steal your car. Give them hope for better jobs and they're less likely to crack you on the skull and take your wallet. Crime became a hot button topic during the election campaign when a pretty white girl was killed in Toronto by a some punk asshole firing into a crowd. It might just be me, but the phrase strengthening the justice system doesn't indicate to me that the Conservatives intend to do anything about the root causes that puts kids in gangs, therefore any strengthening is only going to benefit the population of the nation's penitentiaries. (Note to self - buy stock in CCA, the Conservatives are in power!) To say the least, guys in suits pounding a lectern about strengthening the justice system has a bit of a Clockwork Orange feel about it.
- child care choices - It looks like Harper is going to go ahead with the beer and popcorn money after all, though I presume that Layton and whoever leads the Liberals will make this a tough road for them. The use of the word choices here tells me that daycare is going to get both scarcer and more expensive. Why? Just a feeling, I guess. However if the Conservatives are serious about tax cuts and spending more on the military (though Mulroney said that, too), there is going to be less money lying about for social programs generally, so I'm thinking that this $1200 is going to come from the existing child care budget. Thus, less federal money for childcare. As for this money encouraging one parent to stay at home with the kids, please! This is a little cash dump for those that can already afford to have a spouse at home and not a windfall for the middle or lower class.
- I don't have time to write much about health care right now, but I note that there is no mention of privatization or two-tier or preventing either.
