A Full Year of PMS

In response to leftdog's suggestion that Canada's progressive bloggers highlight the Cons' failures and disappointments over the past year, here's my contribution. But before I get to what's gone (unexpectedly) wrong, let's look at what could have gone better.

I don't think anybody was under the impression that Harper himself would be seen as having moderate views, or would be eager to implement progressive policies. But then, it did seem fair to say that the pursuit of long-term power would likely trump Harper's desire to veer immediately to the right. And since the Cons' best chance at winning a subsequent majority would be based on their running as clean and centrist a government as possible, there was at least a reasonable chance that the Cons would seek to be demonstrably more accountable and less cynical than their Lib predecessors, and maybe toss in a single high-profile progressive program to try to claw their way to a few more centrist votes.

Needless to say, it didn't take Harper long to throw the "clean" part of government out the window. From Emerson/Fortier to the raft of patronage appointments brought in just before the Accountability Act could take effect, the Cons' stay in power so far has only confirmed my suspicion that PMS' only problem with the "Liberal culture of entitlement" was the "Liberal" part.

And that's just based on what the Cons have been forced to announce publicly. We don't have any idea just what's gone on in Harper's inner circle due to the Cons' decision that accountability shouldn't apply to their own government. And Harper's consistent strategy of stonewalling the press has led to political coverage based on ever less-significant (and more-partisan) leaks rather than anything approaching important information.

In that regard, I fear we may have only discovered the tip of the iceberg so far. Given how uniformly the Cons and their supporters seem to believe that "they did it for 13 years, surely we can't be criticized for 1!" is a valid defence to any violation of promise, principle, law or common sense, would anybody be the least bit surprised if a money-under-the-table scheme or two went in place from close to Day One? And if one was discovered, does anybody think the Cons would do anything but try to say they couldn't fairly be criticized since the Libs did roughly the same thing?

So much for clean and/or accountable government. But what about the Cons' policymaking? Again, I'd figured there'd be a chance the Cons would look to moderate their image by unexpectedly taking the lead on some progressive issue that the Libs had ignored to date, with pharmacare and mental health support looking like particularly promising possibilities. Granted, they may have done so through a No Child Left Behind-type process which would ultimately place unfunded demands on the provinces. But at the start at least it would have offered the prospect of a real progressive push, and the was a chance of such a program succeeding in spite of the Cons' efforts.

Instead, the Cons have utterly refused to get behind meaningful new investments in anything other than military equipment, preferring instead to maximize the money available to let Jim Flaherty do to Canada what the Harris government did in Ontario - death by a thousand tax cuts. And the result has been the laughable spectacle of the Cons now realizing that they're properly still seen as far-right, and trying to claim some environmental bona fides based on their reinstating the same programs which they axed without justification last year.

Of course, there is some good news in the Cons' failures. If Harper had indeed made "clean and centrist" his party's watchwords, he'd probably be at or near majority territory by now, rather than looking up in the polls at a Lib leader who hasn't yet come close to settling into the job. But the prospect of the Cons getting tossed out of power doesn't absolve them of blame for the broken promises and failed opportunities while they've been there.