Aside from the appeasement of “artists’ in their Nation Of Quebec and in their Nation Of Toronto (I mentioned this earlier), the Conservatives’ platform has a few other highlights that attracted my attention after fully reading it.
• They re-affirmed and made official in the Conservative platform the crazy idea that they brought up earlier in the campaign almost as a throw-away line: that Canada’s military mission in Afghanistan will cease by 2011, whether the situation at that time still presents a grave threat to our national security or that of the entire West, or not. It simply doesn’t matter. This might be the most insane “promise” ever made by any government in history.
• No surprise because we know their stance already, but they take the time to write: “A Conservative Government will not initiate or support any legislation to regulate abortion.” Abortion is the most disgusting thing ever thought of by humans, so this is egregious.
But on the more positive points:
•
First of all
, even if the media pretends not to see this, and they do pretend that, all those Liberal and leftist party cries of “Harper has no plan!” look even more just plain stupid to me now. I was actually nervously anticipating the Conservative platform springing some happy little Conservative “October surprise” on us, like some massive government spending—sorry “investment”. Plans to so-called “boost the economy”. Then I would have to be out of town on election day. But no, the Conservatives are the only ones who are prepared to deal with the economy with plans to not destroy it, as the others surely will.
The media needs to ask—and answer—the question they never ask the liberal-left parties or themselves: Which party actually correctly read and prepared their election campaigns and their plans with a keen eye to the coming dour economic situation better? Harper, whose conservative-ish plans are very much in keeping with possible falling economic output and an economy possibly about to enter a state of turmoil. Plans with stability built-in, and with just modest spending (“investment”) promises —by comparison in any case— and continued lower taxation, etc.; Or the others, whose massive spending promises and corporate tax increases and funky “tax shifts” and hoo-haws and cha-chas which all seem to have been designed with a complete and utter blind ignorance of any possible downturn in the economy ever happening in the Canadian future. Plans which would literally kill our economy in a downturn. Plans they would have to totally change or abandon or ignore if elected.
The answer is that the Harper Conservatives are the only ones who don’t look like visionless, reckless managers of a nation’s economy. And they did it simply by laying out a platform so modest that it is dubbed as “no plan!” by the left and their media. “No plan!” to the left apparently means “no massive spending promises and no tax increases or wacky, baseless experiments with our country”. If that’s “no plan”, gimme.
•
They once again promise to end the Liberals’ ridiculous long-gun registry
. “A re-elected Conservative Government led by Stephen Harper will ensure that all firearms belong to licensed gun owners, and that all restricted firearms, including handguns, are registered. But we will end the wasteful, ineffective long-gun registry.”
•
On national defence, they say:
“A re-elected Conservative Government led by Stephen Harper will continue rebuilding the Canadian Forces and providing the equipment that our Navy, Army and Air Force require. We are committed to a Canada First Defence Strategy that will provide predictable growth for Canada’s defence budget, increase the size of our forces to 70,000 regular and 30,000 reserves. The Strategy will also invest $45 to $50 billion over the next 20 years in the purchase of major equipment, including replacements for our destroyers and frigates, maritime patrol, search and rescue, fighter aircraft and land vehicle fleets. We will ensure that we acquire the ships, aircraft, vehicles and other equipment our Forces need in a manner that ensures our troops have the best possible equipment and that taxpayers’ dollars are prudently spent.”
•
And continuing to lower taxes for business is naturally a positive:
“Lowering Taxes for Small Business – A re-elected Conservative Government led by Stephen Harper will continue to reduce taxes for small and medium-sized businesses. In our first term, we reduced the small business tax rate to 11 per cent, raised the eligibility threshold for the small business income tax rate to $400,000 and raised the lifetime capital gains exemption for small business owners to $750,000. We will build on this record in our second term by:
—Raising the small business eligibility threshold to $500,000.
—Indexing the lifetime capital gains exemption to inflation.”
•
And they promise to reduce
some of what I think is a government which is twice the size it should be. “Reforming Public Appointments – We will establish a task force to report within one year on unnecessary federally appointed positions that can be eliminated, with a target of reducing federal appointments by 10 per cent overall.” (Meaning there will be only 40% more to go, as I see it).
None of these positives will happen unless the Conservatives get a strong majority. But at this point, it looks like if they get elected at all, it certainly won’t be with a strong majority.
Negatives for us conservatives aside, they deserve—and Canada needs—a strong Conservative majority.
.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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