I must admit that I am a closet conservative, not that this is going to be a huge surprise to Ms. FitN, she knows what I am made of! I was never terribly impressed with the Conservative party, but hey, couldn't be worse than the Liberal Party headed by Stephane Dion (Now replaced by Micheal Ignatieff). The Conservatives were elected on a platform of small government and non-interference (although they do have a "bible belt preacher" attitude).
Canada is somewhat peculiar, in that historically it has been the Liberals (left leaning party) that have reduced expenses and balance the books. Between 1995 and 2006 that is mostly what they did, they were very clever, the Federal government cut its portion of funding in joint provincial/federal projects -- the province taking on the burden of these obligations with the commensurate increase in provincial indebtedness.
Imaging the Prime Minister Harper's (Conservative Party) dilemma when the Canadian economy, like the rest of the world suddenly fell off a cliff. To say that they were unprepared would be an understatement, eventually the the Conservative Government was able to present (cobble) an expansionary budget that has now reverse the past 15 years of Liberal financial stewardship, whereas in 2006 the Federal Government was well on its way to reduce Federal debt to near zero by 2012, the level of indebtedness is now one of the largest in the OECD.
But it gets worse; Canada's Conservative party is based on the same guiding principles that are at the core of the U.S. Republican party, that what happens outside our borders doesn't really matter. Earlier this year Canada's seal exports were banned in Europe because of the way the east coast seal population was being hunted. The image of a a baby seal being clubbed by an unshaven 5th grade educated Newfoundlander was made for prime time TV in Europe. The reality of hunting is never very pretty, and most of us like our meat sealed in plastic -- that way we don't have to think where it comes from. Anyway, the images being provided to the world media were made for prime time, what did the Canadian government do? Nothing, no efforts whatsoever were put in place to counter this terrible image.
During the Liberal administration Canadians were laughing at the Liberal's "One Tonne Challenge" program that was all hot air and no action. Basically telling Canadian to cut their annual carbon footprint by one tonne, it was never explained how Canadians were to do this, there were no real policy nothing... In come the Conservatives who call it as they see it, they scrap the Kyoto Protocol and tell their Alberta buddies that everything is OK. Go crazy on Tar Sands "we've got your back". Although this sounds callous it is a reflection of the reality of living next to the "Great Satan", until the U.S. do something about climate change controls, any action by Canada would be pointless. Right now there is a bill going through the house of Common (Canada's Congress) for Cap and Trade. Nobody really cares, because as soon as the U.S. enact their own rules and regulation we will adopt a carbon copy of what they are doing.
The problem is that Canada and the U.S. don't actually have very good relations right now. In part it is because Canada's foreign policy is... that's the problem we don't seem to have one! It is also a consequence of Democratic administration in Washington and a Conservative Government in Ottawa, but mostly it is a failure of imagination. Steven Harper is not a very curious man. I would call him a George Bush with a vocabulary -- who runs a relatively small and trouble free country.
Imagine Harper's embarrassment when he announced that he was not going to Copenhagen (for the next round of climate control talks) one day before China and America announce that they would be attending! It gets worse, Canada is seen as the big bad wolf, for proposing emission target reduction levels that are identical to what the Americans and Chinese want.
Finally, it has emerged that the Canadian Government has known since 2006 that Afghan prisoners released by the Canadian Armed forces to the Afghan government were mistreated and probably tortured. The Government tried to destroy the reputation of a Canadian diplomat who "blew the whistle" on a number of occasions (similar incident to what happened to Valerie Plame in the in the US), instead of admitting that it just was not interested (again the foreign thing). The Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time is now deeply embarrassed (he has stated that he had no idea that such events were taking place) after Amnesty International revealed (yesterday) that they had me with the Minister's cabinet on several occasions in 2006 to discuss the faith of Afghan prisoners of war being released to the Afghan government.
Right now Canada has bad press. Maybe there's a certain jealousy from other countries. After all, Canada's banks didn't blow up, they are actually in rather good shape. The economy appears to be growing again, the central banks gave clear guidance, our biggest risk is that our currency will continue to appreciate as our companies have good governance, we have plenty of natural resources (Oil, Gas, Hydro, Gold, Steel, Nickel, etc), a well educated healthy homogeneous population, with relatively little crime and social breakdown.
Our government doesn't seem up to the task of showing off Canada in its best light. It reminds me of a story dating back to November 2008, the American media were curious about which book on John Adams Obama was reading, after much speculation it turns out that he was reading two different books, in order to do a comparative analysis (and remove writer bias). You don't get the feeling that Prime Minister Harper read about Mackenzie King (Canada's most famous Prime ministers and oversaw the Canadian economy during and after the WWII). You just don't get the impression that he cares about any of this. A small man, a small party with little thought about the consequences of governing.
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