Conservatives need to govern like Conservatives
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187.44495
Summary
We seem to be entering something of a conservative moment in Canadian politics right now, where a number of provinces have gone from having centrist or left-wing parties governing them to being governed now by conservative premiers, and the polls show there s a pretty decent chance that Andrew Scheer could unseat Justin Trudeau and become the next conservative prime minister of Canada. It s a great moment, a great opportunity for people who want a number of conservative policies, including fiscal conservatism.
Transcript
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We seem to be entering something of a conservative moment in Canadian politics right now,
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where a number of provinces have gone from having centrist or left-wing parties governing them to
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being governed now by conservative premiers. And the polls show that there's a pretty decent chance
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that Andrew Scheer could unseat Justin Trudeau, and he becomes the next conservative prime minister
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of Canada. A great moment, a great opportunity for people who want a number of conservative policies,
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including fiscal conservatism, right? Well, sure, but you have to get it right, and you have to make
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good use of the opportunity. And I'm seeing a number of signals and signs recently that
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perhaps that's not necessarily going to happen. I was having a conversation with a former Mike Harris
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cabinet minister not too long ago, talking about this very phenomenon, Doug Ford being in power in
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Ontario and so forth, and asking how he looked back on the phenomenon that they underwent in Ontario
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with the Mike Harris common sense revolution. And what he said, and apparently what a number of other
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former Harris ministers are saying, is their one big regret is that they had done more, and that they
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had done it sooner. And that a lot of people, conservative politicians, who wanted to bring about
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fiscally conservative change, always look back and go, I should have done it this way, that way I should
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have been more aggressive. We all know that there are leftists who are very good at spending other
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people's money, and they can pull a random deficit number out of the hat, and bam, sit the people with
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it, and put it on the books, and then we're left grappling with it. Well, we've seen some pledges
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recently from conservative politicians that sound like they're darn right liberal, and you want to ask,
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are they aggressive enough? Andrew Scheer just the other week announced when he would balance the books,
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and he said that the conservatives would do it in five years. He says that's the magnitude of the
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problem that Justin Trudeau has presented them with, that he's left the government with, with his
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massive deficits. Of course, he promised only 10 billion, and then in the first year it was almost
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30 billion. He's really racking it all up. But what does it tell us that in four years, you can run
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four years of deficits, and it's so problematic that a conservative government comes in and says they can do it
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in five years? That five years is the time it takes to turn all of this around? Well, of course, there's
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no such thing as a five-year term. The best Andrew Scheer would get is a four-year majority, and maybe be
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re-elected and then go on to that fifth year. But basically what Andrew Scheer was saying was even if
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he gets a majority, he won't balance the budget. That's a problem. And we've got similar things
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happening in Alberta and in Ontario. Doug Ford announcing recently in his actual budget that
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they will not balance the books left over from Kathleen Wynne until year five. There is no year
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five. Doug Ford has a four-year majority term. So he's saying only if he gets re-elected will he
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balance the books. Now, you can say that Kathleen Wynne left the government in a bad situation,
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the Ontario coffers, and she absolutely did. But are they doing enough? Are they focused enough? Are they
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being aggressive enough such that you can have four years of Doug Ford, a politician who, if you read
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all the headlines, they say he's making cuts left, right, and center? Well, the truth is Doug Ford
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actually is not making any cuts. They're shuffling the money around to different departments and
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different priorities, but government is growing in Ontario. He has increased the size of the budget,
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the debt is going up, and he has decreased the deficit. So he's not doing it as poorly as Kathleen
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Wynne was doing it, but he is still racking up a lot of debt. Jason Kenney, he's saying that they're
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going to balance the books in year four. And credit to him, he has a majority and has a four-year term.
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So he's saying his last budget, he will balance the books. This all coming after just four years of
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Rachel Notley running deficits. It's very dismaying. And we need to have a conversation about fiscal
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conservatism in Canada. Are we getting what we asked for? And if not, why not? Is it just that,
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oh, cuts are hard and, you know, it's harder than we first thought? Well, okay, that may be the case.
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But why is it then in just a few years, someone like Trudeau can bring in all these deficits and
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you suddenly say, we don't know how to deal with this. We don't know how to grapple with it.
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Are you conceding that Justin Trudeau was right throwing all that money into the system? Or are you
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saying you don't want to make the tough decisions and deal with the blowback from rolling all of that out?
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And what about a lot of big ticket issues that a lot of fiscal conservatives have been advocating for
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for years now? Changing the pension system that public servants receive. Private sector people
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generally don't receive defined benefit pensions anymore, where you get a massive lump sum,
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basically a mini salary from retirement until your death. The private sector is reforming that.
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The public sector should reform that. Also, back in the day, it used to be that public sector employees
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made a little bit less than their private sector counterparts, but the deal was that they knew
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they had job security, so they took less. Now reports say that public sector workers are making
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about 11-12% more than private sector workers. Well, there's your premium. New hires should be brought
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in at about 10% less than the people previously in that position, so we can equalize all of that for
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fairness. These are the big ticket conversations we have to have right now, because we are in a
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conservative moment in Canada, where conservatives are on the upswing. But if they all get into office,
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you want to make sure they make good use of their time.