Editor:
It’s somewhat of a cliche if not a truism that the Liberal Party of Canada campaigns on the left and governs on the right. Right out of the gate Trudeau’s crew started dancing the privatization hokey pokey, hedging pre-election infrastructure promises with talk of “innovative financing” and “asset recycling.” Now that Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s ragtag band of executives, management consultants and investment bankers (the Advisory Council on Economic Growth, to be pedantic) has reported in, we see it in all its terrible glory.
Public private partnerships, tolls and user fees and more immigration to increase the labour supply are all on the menu. About what you’d expect from people who think the problem with the economy is that corporate Canada doesn’t get its way often enough. Higher top marginal tax rates for people like executives, management consultants and investment bankers, rescinding Harper’s ineffectual corporate tax cuts, the kind of stuff implied before the election, strangely absent.
Bottom line, infrastructure will probably be built, how it was to be paid for was misrepresented, and it won’t belong to us. In a big picture sense, the new guy shows the same neo-liberal world view as the guy we just turfed. It’s also worth noting the marked similarities to the Donald J. Trump privatized infrastructure and corporate welfare plan being mulled down south.
I wish I could say, “I’m not angry, I’m disappointed.” I can’t. The only thing I’m not is surprised.
Chris Oslie, Sechelt
