My former co-blogger Pat McIver tweeted today in reference to a recent Globe and Mail article. The article explores Liberal Party and Official Opposition leader Michael Ignatieff's options should an election everyone thinks is coming actually come this spring. The numbers show a slight Conservative advantage (generally in the range of about 5% +/- a couple). So where should Iggy and the Grits be looking for votes? Should they target the NDP, who has long been stealing left-leaning Liberal voters, or the Conservatives themselves?
In my opinion, the Liberals need to go straight at the Conservatives. Bold? Absolutely. But not foolish. And besides that, nobody ever got anywhere without taking a chance.
The Conservatives have alienated a large portion of their supporters. The last - disastrous - budget sent many fiscally conservative Tories into a major tizzy (Mr. McIver included). While many of them will have a hard time finding evidence that a Liberal budget would have been any different, the fact remains that the last time any fiscal conservative was properly served by their government, it was a Liberal government with a right-leaning Finance Minister. Well, the current Liberal Party has done one better: it has a right-leaning leader (and would-be Prime Minister) and a former RBC Chief Economist (and would-be Finance Minister). Since advocating for expensive economic subsidies in late 2008 and early 2009, the Liberal Party under Michael Ignatieff has consistently advocated for responsible budgets.* There is a large section of (small-c) conservatives who are looking for that kind of fiscal direction from federal politicians.
But Ignatieff can't afford to lose his current supporters either. Current Liberals, while many of them are also looking for balanced budgets and fiscal responsibility, value social responsibility. This means continuing to advocate and protect Canada's successful and valuable social programs, and cutting the ones that don't work. This also means coming up with a meaningful environmental policy that Canadians are telling government they want. Canadians, Conservative, Liberal or otherwise, are ashamed of being part of Canada the pariah state. To be clear, being environmentally and socially responsible does not require being fiscally irresponsible. By directing tax breaks and subsidies in the right direction, instead of continuing in the wrong direction (for example, the [admittedly] Liberal initiated subsidies for tar sands exploration), the government can promote growth while being fiscally responsible.** Ideally, that means putting a few billion dollars into a struggling green industry instead of a booming oil industry.
The big issue right now, the issue the federal political parties are drawing the line in the sand over, is corporate tax cuts. The Conservative government committed to, and has refused to abandon, absurd corporate tax cuts. Rather than relying on some pie-in-the-sky theory that cutting corporate tax cuts in the middle of a massive deficit will boost the Canadian economy and create growth, the Liberals (and the NDP) have advocated a more responsible approach: cancel the tax cuts until the government's fiscal house is in order. Corporate tax cuts now are like asking for a pay cut at work so that your company can save money when you can't afford to pay the rent. Unfortunately the Conservative government is committed to cutting off the nose to spite the face.
My message to Michael Ignatieff: go at the Conservatives with a strong, responsible fiscal policy that includes balanced budgets and reasonable spending. Show Canadians how a Liberal government will turn massive deficits into a small surplus over the course of their term in office. Show Canadians how we can make the right environmental steps by promoting the right industries. A government that is willing to protect the environment by stimulating the right sectors of the economy (instead of the wrong ones) will be rewarded by the majority of reasonable Canadians. Even the left-leaning Liberals who've been voting NDP will be won with that simple message. Canadians have never really liked Stephen Harper, but neither have they had a reason to go anywhere else. It is time to give them that reason.
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Notes:
* The disastrous budget of the "Coalition of the Willing" (including the Tories who actually introduced it and voted for it) was a mistake. But two years on the Liberal message, under a new leader (that budget was initially advocated for while the Liberals were led by Stephane Dion), has been fiscal restraint and responsibility. Yes, Ignatieff's Liberals have asked Stephen Harper why he didn't spend the money in the budget as he said he would, but that's not advocating irresponsible spending, that's advocating an adherence to the law of the budget. It's like saying, "Would we have introduced that last budget? No. But Parliament approved it and now you need to stick to it, right or wrong." Ignatieff's Liberals have advocated, consistently, fiscal responsibility.
** Yes, the Liberals in the 1990s created the tar sands subsidies that I'm advocating against. And in the 1990s, when oil was cheap and the tar sands industry was floundering, those subsidies and tax breaks made economic sense. That industry is booming now (and booming as irresponsibly as possible). It is time to revoke those subsidies - they no longer make economic sense. Subsidizing an industry is something a government can reasonably do when that industry is struggling or in its infancy, not when it is mature and booming. It is time to shift those subsidies to a new struggling, infant, industry - green industry.
