Inkless Wells

Paul Wells on all the latest out of Ottawa—along with the occasional post about jazz. Follow Paul on Twitter: @InklessPW
He also offers his thoughtful perspective of Stephen Harper’s last 10 years in his recent eBook, The Harper Decade.

Categories: Capital Read, Inkless Wells

Stephen Harper, no longer singing

by Paul Wells on Tuesday, October 6, 2009 12:20pm - 87 Comments

The Prime Minister does an interview with Bill Carroll of Toronto radio station Newstalk 1010.

After the inevitable questions about the rich gala, talk turns to the economy, and to political strategy. Spotlight quotes:

“The difficulty with the opposition, everyone knows, is they can complain about the deficit all they want, but everyone knows they’d run it a lot higher and they’d make it permanent.”

“We don’t want to get into a situation like the Liberals had us in in the ’90s, where they were raising taxes and cutting health care and education.”

“The problem, Bill, as we all know, is, the Opposition, for whatever reason — I don’t know who they’re listening to — but they want an election at all costs, so they’re trying to force an election and then invent a reason for it. The problem is, their lines are all untrue.”

Tags: Newstalk 1110, Stephen Harper

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Brad Sallows

It is almost certain that a Liberal government would, at some point if not every year, qualify as the "biggest spending" government in Canadian history. Year-over-year spending growth is all but guaranteed.

And the Conservative deficit of the '90s was just the Liberal deficit of the '80s, increased by a period of high inflation.

Other than the overspending binge of the '70s, the worst fiscal mistake of the past 40 years was not paying down more of the outstanding accumulated federal deficit during the boom years from '97 to '07.
CAPS

Steve is in the zone. Unfortunately I do not like where this zone would be taking the country.
http://intensedebate.com/people/TwoYen TwoYen

Wow! The Libertrolls are out in full force!
kcm

As an economic neophyte – could someome please explain what the friggin hell he's on about when he says:"…they'd make it higher." What evidence does he have for that? If Harper ever needed evidence for anything he has to say.
http://intensedebate.com/people/ChrisInKW ChrisInKW

And the deficit will be even higher.
kcm

Crap! I meant of course.."thy'd make it permanent."
shouldIsellyourwheat

Chretien and Martin balanced the budget on the backs of the provinces, slashing transfers for health care and social services. They cut transfers to provinces more than they cut their own federal spending. (Not even Mulroney did that. Mulroney limited his own federal spending more than he limited transfers). Chretien and Martin also get raising the most regressive tax possible, EI premiums, and used that money for general revenue.

Chretien and Martin could probably have been harder on their own spending rather than on transfers for the provinces, but they weren't,

All of it was probably necessary, and I commend them for getting the budget balanced and running surpluses, but Liberals should not deny the truth of what they did, which was stick it to the working poor via EI premiums, and gut the health care system.
MJ Patchouli

And yet you're the first poster to call others names.

Whooza troll?
http://intensedebate.com/people/YYZ YYZ

Which factual arguments – of which the "trolls" have made several – do you dispute?
http://intensedebate.com/people/Nich Nich

I love your sarcasm. It's brilliance is in the succinctness.
wilson

That $54 Billion that Chretien/Martin raided from the EI surplus from 2001-2005 to fake surplus',
would sure have come in handy. The Libs left the EI cupboard empty.
Ted

But Harper thinks that his record setting deficit will just magically disappear on its own, without tax increases (or to put it more accurately, more tax increases from him) or spending cuts. Riiiight.

And the Liberals did not stick it to the working poor by eliminating the Conservative deficit in the 1990s. Everyone took a hit and as a result, billions have been saved in interest and the stability of our financial system. unemployment came down, even while it was going up in the US during the tech bubble burst.

And how was the healthcare system "gutted"? Seems to me there were problems and there are problems. Seems to me Chretien, then Martin, had huge transfer agreements signed, while Harper, after 4 years, has only met with the premiers once. And has made absolutely no effort on anything on healthcare.
Smith

Very true. And you left out the nonsense of them opposing…and then endorising the GST. So what exactly did they add to the solution?
Dakota

Why are you trying to un-brainwash the Liberals? They don't want to know about all the billions stolen from the EI fund to pad their surplus numbers.

Let them live in their fantasy world in peace.

Repeat after me Liberals….Paul Martin was smart, he saved Canada.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

And then in the late nineties, early 2000's what happened? They turned around and paid it back.

So much so that when Harper's party came into office in 2004 with the promise to "fix the fiscal imbalance", their actions in that respect were to look at the books and then say, "Yeah.. it's already fixed."
http://www.intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

And then in the late nineties, early 2000's what happened? They turned around and paid it back.

So much so that when Harper's party came into office in 2004 with the promise to "fix the fiscal imbalance", their actions in that respect were to look at the books and then say, "Yeah, uh, it's already fixed."
Jeckyl/Hyde

I love how Tories these days get to spend their time picking and choosing which Mulroney policies they were and were not apart of, to suit any narrative on a different day. It's like the whole "Reform" thing never happened, and like Harper wasn't even part of it. Next week, it'll be a different version of events again.
Dakota

I guess Harper could follow Martin's example and just pillage the EI fund for 50 billion or so.
wilson

Yes, Libs should come out guns ablazing about the incompetent Mr Flaherty!

“Finance Minister of the Year, 2009"
'…Mr. Flaherty, riding on Canada's ability to weather the worst of the financial crisis, is making a name for himself in the world of international finance.

Counterparts from the United States, Britain, China and elsewhere seek him out for advice on overhauling financial regulation…'

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business…
Orson Bean

True enough, that in order for Harper to predict what would happen to the deficit under the Liberals, the Liberals would actually have to have policy positions. Since the Liberals currently have no policy positions, I agree that it is impossible for Harper to make the prediction that he made.
http://intensedebate.com/people/YYZ YYZ

This is clearly doublespeak at its finest.
Hatch

permanent spending: massive government programs which cannot be easily phased out

See also: deficit, structural.
Ted

Seems to me that Canadians rejected Martin, bud.

Is that really your defence of Harper's lying and revisionist history?

How does he plan to reduce his deficit anyway? Magic and pixie dust?
http://intensedebate.com/people/SeanStok SeanStok

You know, there are some of us who simply call bullsh*t when we see it. From any quarter, but particularly from those who run the country.

There's an awful lot Harper can and should be proud of recently. He's getting in the habit of communicating with Canadians a bit mroe. He's putting out legislation that is largely acceptable to most Canadians (or equally distasteful to all, such being the nature of compromises). He's mostly put a positive image forward at international gatherings.

But can't seem to stop being the petty partisan, the guy with a chip on his shoulder, and the man who can't step into the role of being this country's leader. Instead of answering reasonable questions from a position of accountability and mature self assurance that he's in charge, he reflexively starts 'screaming' half-truths about the opposition bogeymen. It's a disservice to the country, and it's disservice to himself – he honestly can relax a bit and try being PM for a while.
http://intensedebate.com/people/danby danby

But he would do it with transparency and accountability, right Dak?
http://nottawa.blogspot.com mark

That would require getting about a million Canadians back to work.
Ted

OK. Martin and Chretien saved Canada by eliminating the Conservative deficit.

That wasn't hard at all.

There was no stealing from EI to balance the budget, bud. The EI surplus issue (1) occurred AFTER the budget was balanced after 2000 and (2) the Supreme Court said that what they did, take the EI surplus and move it to general revenue was perfectly alright and legal.

Better get some new talking points.
kcm

I wouldn't be surprised at all if someone with an economics background were to come along if it could be shown that the surplus and UI going into general revenue [ which i thought was wrong ] have absolutely nothing to do with each other. But you were busy trolling…
http://intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

Once again the refrain: "Don't look at what we're doing.. look at what they did!"
Smith

I think the tone is indicative of how desparate the Libs feel right now. No leader, no ideas, no poll support, caucus unhappy, quebec mp openly critical. I bet even Jack is outpolling Iggy now…kinda makes you miss Stephane.
Hatch

permanent spending: massive government programs which cannot be easily phased out

see also: deficit, structural
Candace

interest rates in late 70s early 80s were double digits – people had 15-18% mortgage rates.
http://www.intensedebate.com/people/danby danby

Again with this everyone……
rmark

What about 1993-2001?