Monday Afternoon Links

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- Pogge nicely rebuts the effort of the Cons and their media allies to rewrite the Harper government's history of economic mismanagement:

L. Ian MacDonald joins the list of right-leaning pundits intent on cementing the notion that whatever failings Stephen Harper may demonstrate, he's given us competent government and especially where the economy is concerned.

Apart from the five priorities, the principal achievement of the Harper government has been navigating the economy through the dangerous shoals of the Great Recession to the safe harbour of recovery.

Which completely ignores the fact that the Harper government had already created a structural deficit through a combination of profligate spending and injudicious tax cuts before the recession hit. It also ignores the fact that Stephen Harper, Economist Extraordinaire, denied that the Great Recession was even happening until it became undeniable and then claimed that it wouldn't have any impact on Canada. And it ignores the fact that the stimulus package, such as it was, came about because the opposition forced it by threatening to bring the government down unless it changed course.

Oh, and that banking system the Conservatives are fond of bragging about? They didn't build it; they inherited it. All those jobs that have been recovered? If you look under the surface you find that in many cases we've traded permanent, full time, high-paying jobs for part-time or temporary ones.

- Apparently unveiling a party's election readiness is now considered unacceptable posturing by the ever prim-and-proper Cons. Somebody should inform the last party to do so.

[Update: Aaron Wherry says it better.]

- Brian Topp theorizes that the Libs' current weakness may serve to expand the range of political choice available to Canadians for a long time to come:

(O)ne of the many gifts to Canada provided by the steady hollowing-out of the federal Liberal Party under its unbroken string of weak, uninspired and uninspiring leaders since prime minister Jean Chrétien was ousted in a thuggish coup a decade ago is that an enormous amount of political space has been created for Canadians to discover leaders and priorities they can support among Canada’s other mainstream national political parties.

Whatever your political persuasion, that has to be a good thing.
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If Stephen Harper is defeated in the next election or replaced in the first days of the next Parliament, that will probably stand as his principal achievement – the final breaking of one-party rule in Canada, to the benefit of all citizens.

And as that Vancouver Sun report (listing Jack Layton as by far Canada's most popular leader) suggests, credible, mainstream choices are now available on the opposition bench that don’t require us to hold our noses, close our eyes, and return to the past.

- And finally, in case anybody was worried that the Cons weren't spending enough public money for their own political benefit, we can add $900,000 for news release services to the list.