Jeff Jedras: Budget 2012

A week or so later, I've finally had a chance to take a gander through the Budget 2012 documents. I like to look through the source documents on things like this rather than rely on media and punditry analysis to form my opinions. And having done so, I have to say my conclusion is that Stephen Harper plans to stick around for a little while.

Both the left and the right are angry with him, and they both have cases to make. The right wanted sweeping moves to reform and reduce the size of government now that the Conservatives have an unfettered majority. That's not what they got. And the left, besides being upset that the budget (of course) didn't invest in their priority areas, are upset at the areas Harper did decide to cut.

Majority or minority, Harper has generally struck me as a fairly patient man, and one with a plan. He does share the goal of his fellow right-wing travellers for smaller government (his high spending budgets notwithstanding). His most substantial move in this regard was cutting the GST by two per cent a few years ago, which deprives his (and future) government of billions in revenue, tax increases now being largely politically toxic. He wants a smaller role for government too, he just parts ways with some of the right on the timeline.

He took an incremental approach in the minority era because he didn't want his government to fall. With a majority he now has a blank cheque, and majority tradition is to do all the unpopular stuff in year one and then spend the next three trying to win the people back for re-election. If he implemented the kind of massive sweeping and transformative change that some wanted though, even with three years to soften the blow re-election would be a real challenge.

Instead, as has been his practice, he opted for an incremental approach. But if you look closely, the road to smaller government, less checks and balances to his executive power, and progress on Conservative pet peeves is definitely there, from cuts that will force a radical transformation of the CBC (once it loses Hockey Night in Canada and a big chunk of its ad revenue) to a gutting of environmental review regulations and reductions to funding for Elections Canada, which has sparred with the Conservatives over their violations of election law. Reduced funding to Parliament will also make it harder for MPs to do their basic duty of scrutinizing government legislation.

Call it transformation by stealth but slowly, year by year, he's re-making government in a more conservative mould, while working to make the changes difficult to do and harder to oppose. Massive changes overnight would be a rallying cry that could galvanize public opposition. By moving incrementally, he appears relatively moderate to the public, which is what they want. Of course the opposition is going to scream loudly; they always do. The public just tunes it out without something major to draw their attention.

What this budget shows me is that Harper plans to govern for many years to come. Conservatives can shelve any plans for a leadership race; it looks like he plans to run in 2015. At the very least, he wants to hand a good situation over to his successor.

But I think he plans to continue his agenda of incremental conservatization, year by year, for years to come. Conservatization by stealth. He told us once that when he was finished with Canada, we wouldn't recognize it. The change may not be clear year to year, but by the time he's done it definitely will be.

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This morning I randomly heard that interim Liberal leader Bob Rae and members of the Liberal caucus were holding a post-budget town hall at the Armenian Community Centre in Toronto. After debating it for a bit, I decided to drop my previous Saturday plan of re-runs of Holmes Inspection, followed by a nap, and head over to the event.

I live-tweeted the event so I'm going to try something a little different. Rather than transform my tweets into a narrative, I've created a Storify of my tweet coverage. Let me know what you think. A few thoughts, and a few videos, will follow.

The event's primary audience was ethnic communities and the ethnic media, and Rae made a particular point of highlighting the budget's cuts to foreign assistance and to the Foreign Affairs, noting it will lead to closed embassies and a reduction of Canada's role in the world, and will make it harder for Canada to intervene in situations such as that in Syria today. I think it will be interesting to see which countries are targeted for reductions, and how those choices correlate, if at all, with ethnic community support for the Conservatives.

The answers I found most both had to do with tax. Asked whether the federal government should get directly involved in funding transit, Rae said he would transfer *all* gas tax revenue to the cities. And asked about what can be done about high gas prices, Rae rightly said not much can be done about global pressures on prices but if prices go much higher, some sort of assistance such as a tax rebate should be considered for low and middle income Canadians.

I agree on the gas tax transfer, but I'm somewhat leery of the other. *If* you do want to do something, it should indeed be laser-targeted to income. But I'm unconvinced you want to do something. Prices are unlikely to drop any time soon, we have no money to throw around, and I don't like the environmental message.

On a positive note though; I don't always agree with Bob on policy but I was very pleased to see his strong defence both of federalism, and as government as a force for good and positive change in society. I strongly share these beliefs, and I believe they offer strong contrasts with the Harper Conservatives (and, on federalism, the Mulcair NDP) that we should be exploiting.

But anyway, I promised you videos, and I have three. First, here's Rae's answer on a national transit strategy where he pledges to transfer all of the federal gas tax to municipalities:

Here's Rae's answer on high gas prices, and musing on a tax break or other assistance for low and middle income Canadians

And finally, here's Rae talking about the budget more generally and how Harper has been increasing the inequality between regular Canadians and corporations in terms of the tax burden.