Burning down the Harper legacy serving Trudeau well
Burning down the Harper legacy serving Trudeau well
OTTAWA—As the Stephen Harper years piled one onto another, debate grew in the capital over how much of his Conservative legacy would become a fundamentally ingrained part of Canada.
Would successive governments be unwilling or unable to lift the rocks and get at the philosophical underpinnings of almost a decade of Harper?
Turns out, a lot of the Conservative agenda can be overturned, and rather quickly.
While Justin Trudeau’s Liberals may be spinning their wheels on some big items, such as the size of its budget deficit, the scope of its missing and murdered indigenous women inquiry or the regional tensions engendered by its imminent decision on a $1-billion bailout or stake in Bombardier, it is proving much more adept at tearing down the Conservative house.
It’s as if the new government stole into that old Conservative neighbourhood armed with a pressure washer and starting cleaning that unsightly graffiti off the walls.
It started early with the announcement of the restoration of the long-form census.
Liberals have overturned the closing of veterans offices, pledged to reverse funding cuts to the CBC, overturned two pieces of legislation it considered punitive to labour and restored funding to First Nations which had been frozen under the previous government’s transparency act. It also suspended all court action against First Nations which did not comply with the legislation.
It ended a Conservative court appeal of provisions of Omar Khadr’s bail and ended an appeal of the citizenship niqab ruling which sullied the last election.
It changed the way the Conservatives dealt with sick leave for federal employees, has given permission to federal scientists to speak to the media and is ending an audit of charities by the Canada Revenue Agency, which was seen to be payback for advocating for the environment.
It has changed the way senators are appointed — although it is behind schedule and has a long way to go before there can be any clarity on this initiative.
It will fully restore health-care coverage for all refugees and asylum claimants to the pre-2012 levels, before Conservative cuts.
It is revamping the environmental assessment process — a major Harper initiative — while keeping the right of cabinet to make the final decision on pipeline projects.
More is to come — an overhaul of the C-51 domestic anti-terror act, changes to the Fair Elections Act, the Firearms Act and repeal of some provisions of bill allowing the government to strip Canadian citizenship.
Some of the changes seem borne simply of election promises, and not sound rationale, such as the revamped anti-ISIS mission. Some things that have not changed, such as the controversial Saudi arms deal, have been mired in confusion. Global Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion says he is opposed to the deal, but it is going ahead regardless.
For this, according to a Forum poll published over the weekend, the Liberals would win 70 per cent of the seats if an election were held today.
This is likely to be about as good as it gets for this government, because we are fast approaching the point where the Conservative teardown runs out of low-hanging fruit and the Liberals will be judged on their own merits.
http://m.thestar.com/#/article/news...r-legacy-serving-trudeau-well-tim-harper.html
