Economic Impact of Harper Majority
This 6 minute debate between Michael Hlinka, CBC business correspondent, and myself examines the economic impact of a Harper majority. It took place early today on Metro Morning, the local morning CBC program in Toronto.
It touches on the nature of growth, the distribution of the benefits of growth, the erosion of the foundation of growth, and the role of the NDP, as official opposition, to offer some balance to the process of defining and serving the public interest.
Note the Harper majority in the House of Commons is based on the preference of less than a quarter of Canadians (39.6% support from 61.4% of eligible voters)
There will be much discussion of where we are headed economically, socially and democratically in the coming days, weeks, and months.
60% of the decided stand for a generally progressive agenda.
40% of eligible voters need to be engaged.
Lots to work with. Lots to be done.
Armine,
The fact is that Conservative economics policy is based on dogma-not reality. Their commitment to spending on jets, jails, and big business has no economic rationale.
The jets-whose maintenance cost estimates are now spiralling out of control, will be an anachronism before they roll off of the assembly line. From what I’ve read, drones are the future-especially if the future is to protect our interests in the arctic. It’s unlikely that we’ll be engaging in any aerial dogfights with the Taliban any time soon.
The jails are likely the reason the Cons hate the census so much. The data keeps showing crime going down but the folks in blue just want to build their prisons.
Then there’s big oil and the banks. Tax breaks and subsidies make no sense. These boys are making big bucks anyway and they really can’t take their businesses elsewhere.
Especially when it comes to the Tar Sands. What’s going to happen if the feds cut the subsidies to that project? Are they going to pick up their massive toys and move them to the Gulf? And if they pass on the cuts in subsidies or tax increases, they’ll be feeding them into a global market, so the impact on Canadians would be diluted but the benefits from putting the extra $B’s back into the fed account would help with the deficit.
PLUS debating economics with Michael Hlinka is a waste of time. If you listened to his views pre-2009, every solution to any economic problem was ‘let the market decide’. I’m not sure if he’s recanted or if he’s joined the chorus of recession deniers and is putting the blame on the Obama administration. Either way, he is also driven by dogma -or whatever nonsense Diane Francis is spouting about the economy.
This just shows what a joke most of the CBC’s economic coverage is – the real economy is hardly ever an issue according to folks like Michael Hlinka but any stock market flucations are a “pressing national concern”.
Election lesson #1- Know thy own PARTY- especially if you are a liberal leader. As soon as the orange crush’s beautiful being appeared on the horizon to save us villagers from the blue dragon- many of the red villagers took off their coats to show their true blue colours- yes strategic voting does work- those blue lliberals ran pretty fast into the mouth of the blue dragon.
And yes I agree with the analyst and others, the libs campaign was poor and the NDP should have also focused a whole lot more on the Tories.
Of course being an and considering the nature of this thread economics, my main beef was both parties letting Harper frame the issue of the economy being just great- which as we all know is very far from the truth.
The best day of the campaign from a progressive economics standpoint was the day that Toby got the lead article into the Globe and mail which dealt a serious blow to the whole Corporate tax cuts issue.
All in all- me personally I go to my story on dragons and Blue liberals being more afraid of orange than blue. HAve a look at the results and you will see a consistent pattern. Libs down and tories up.
The Bloc did their Job and so did the NDP, it was the Liberals who could not hold even 50 seats to allow the NDP to form power. AND WHY????
FAct #1 and the only fact you might need- I thought it was so so wierd hearing right wing media pumping the JAck Layton surge at every opportunity they could in the last week of the campaign. Sure they were risking the surge would lead elsewhere, but the media knew full well Harper needed but a handful of seats to save Canada from the orange menace.
Truly I was so so so so surprised that that many blue libs turned coats and ran to HArper. I guess strategic voting does work for the Harpers of the world and the media was instrumental in scaring the hell out of those blue libs.
End of story- Blue Libs sacrificed their own party rather than allowing Orange to rule the land and defeat the blue dragon.
(it would also have helped immensely if 20-30% more of the villagers actually would have taken a coffee break and voted.)
Harper’s win did not have the promised effect on the stock market.
Erin, why do so many financial reporters repeat the “Tories are good for financial markets” as a second reflex? It’s not even like short-term (day by day) flucations in financial markets even statistically matter.
Armine: you were divine! That was one of the best performances by a PEF member I’ve ever heard in an interview. Well done.
(That said, the Marxist in me quite enjoyed Michael Hlinka referring to the difference between Canada’s three major political parties as “the thickness of a playing card.”)