Into the Home Stretch

We are in the final week of the Federal Election campaign. If the incessant polls are to be believed, it's a dead heat between the Liberals and the Conservatives, with the Bloc and NDP vying to hold the balance of power in a minority government.

Perhaps I've lived too long in "Ralph's World" to be overly impressed with Stephen Harper and his rebranded Conservatives. I've never been one of Ralph's fans, and in the last couple of years, he has become increasingly objectionable and dogmatic as our premier. Rather than working with Ottawa, he constantly tries to pick fights; he seems blindly set on privatizing everything in sight, whether it's in the public interest or not; and for all the credit he takes for "balancing the provinces books", let's face it, the last 10 years have seen record breaking revenues in Alberta - a chimpanzee would have been hard pressed to have a deficit.

It's not what Harper says that bothers me - it's the evasiveness on social issues that really bugs me. I've been through the Conservative's campaign platform and what I see is a program of blind Americanization of our economic policy; foreign policy modelled on George Bush (*shudder*), and social policy that would fling this country back into the early 20th century. When asked direct questions about issues like gay rights, abortion, or the hate crimes legislation, Harper and his team try to deflect the question rather than answering it.

I'm not saying that Ralph is Stephen or vice versa. But the similarities in behaviour, especially when confronted with something they know to be unpopular with the public is worrisome. Klein has all but said he wants to privatize our medical system, regardless of the Canada Health Act. Harper continues to prevaricate - evading the questions. By implication, he likely wants to see Klein go forward - so he'll have an example of "innovation" to point to when he screws up the national program.

The Conservatives talk about "Trustworthy Government". How can we, as voters, trust a party that won't even speak clearly to what its election platform is.

Even if I take the cynical view that 75% of the Liberal promises are fictional accounts of a future government's actions, they have at least been clear and unequivocal about what they want to do. The shadow of Chretien's legacy looms over the party today like a thundercloud on the prairies. The past record of the Chretien Liberals doesn't make me overly optimistic that they are telling the truth about everything, but I think it's more likely that a certain percentage of the promises won't be fulfilled. As opposed to having noxious legislation sprung upon us by a party that won't even tell us how it intends to conduct itself.

The themes in this election have been around honesty and integrity. Where the Liberals have their past record to deal with, the Conservatives can assert that they are "more honest" than the Liberals - but are they really? Given that the Reform/Alliance party's roots are in Alberta, I will look to the Provincial PC party and I think that lot in Edmonton is as crooked as they come. Worse, they have consistently attempted to evade anything like real accountability. Klein's government is no paragon of transparency - by far the majority of governance is taking place under the guise of 'Order-in-Council' actions, rather than in the open forum of the Legislature. I have seen nothing from the Conservatives to convince me that they will be any different.