Stephen Harper - Taking us back to the Trudeau-Mulroney years

Some might find this a strange admission, but I actually consider myself something of a conservative, certainly in terms of all things fiscal.  I have in fact voted Conservative in the past, I take a bit of pride in being able to say that I've voted Conservative, Liberal and NDP at different times.

While there are a legion of voters out there who will vote Liberal or Conservative EVERY ELECTION, no matter what, to me that is the ultimate in stupidity.

The Conservatives are not always the party to vote for, (in my opinion certainly not now, and not with Stephen Harper's disdain for our democratic traditions and his secretiveness).  And neither are the Liberals.

But Canadian voters can be stupid.  The electorate of this nation continually voted for both Liberal and Conservative governments in the seventies and eighties that put this country in a huge financial hole.  Of course I'm talking about Pierre Trudeau and Brian Mulroney.  You can argue about the differences between the two until the cows come home, but in one respect they were indisputably joined at the hip.  Racking up huge deficits which meant Canadian tax dollars being wasted on debt service instead of anything of tangible value.

When the Chretien-Martin Liberals came to power in the early nineties about 25 cents out of every tax dollar we sent to Ottawa wasn't going to Health Care, the military, transfer payments or anything useful...it was just paying interest.  That is just plain stupid.

A lot of the credit for bringing our fiscal house in order belongs to Preston Manning.  He campaigned playing a one string banjo, and the note he hit over and over and over was the need to balance the books.  And while the Liberals actually did the deed, I doubt they would have had the political will without Manning's presence on the political landscape.

And now we have Stephen Harper, ugh. 

Its right back to the Trudeau, Mulroney years.  Spending billions more than government revenues will support. 

And Stephen wants a majority???  Yeah right!!!

Will he get it?  I don't know.  I like to think Canadian voters are intelligent, but history suggests otherwise.  We kept reelecting Trudeau and Mulroney despite the financial disaster they were creating. 

Hopefully voters will be smarter this time around, future generations will thank us. 

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