The Tory Principles That Libranos Won’t Get
Sometimes the conventional wisdom has difficulty believing that when the Tories say they’ll do things different, they mean it — and not in the way that conventional wisdom thinks. There are three cases yesterday that highlight a few of the new guidelines:
Principle No. 1: The Tories will not take the fall for the decisions of the previous government.
That’s the main reason why Rona Ambrose’s speech yesterday came off as “partisan”:
“When Canada’s new government assumed power this year, we found an unacceptable situation,” she said. “We found that measures to address climate change by previous Canadian governments were insufficient and unaccountable.”
“It’s inappropriate in an international meeting to slam another political party,” Liberal environment critic John Godfrey told CTV Newsnet on Wednesday, adding no other environment minister did so.
“Secondly, she’s wrong, that we didn’t have a plan,” he said.
The Liberals launched their $10-billion Project Green in April 2005, and had started to implement it when it was defeated, Godfrey said.
“We would have had — had they not messed it up! — things actually happening by 2008,” he said.
“We had the EnerGuide program which had already retrofitted 70,000 houses; we had doubled the amount of wind power production in 2005.”
Just one problem: the Auditor-General’s office had doubts about the actual efficacy of EnerGuide and the wind power programs:
3.20 NRCan reported in a 2005 discussion document on WPPI that operating wind farms were producing about 20 percent less electricity than expected in the signed contribution agreements. The Department has stated that the program will not meet its initial target for electricity production if this trend continues. Since greenhouse gas emissions are directly related to the amount of electricity produced, the emission target may not be met either . . .
For the EnerGuide for Existing Houses program, funding was complex, leading to confusing targets. We found five Treasury Board decisions that authorized funds for the program and which did not clearly describe emission reduction results expected for this money . . .
Yes, the Libranos were tackling a noble goal, but as always, the means towards that goal didn’t matter to them. They do matter to the Tories, and to anyone else concerned about efficient administration. And Rona Ambrose isn’t going to have her feet held to the fire for Liberal errors.
Principle No. 2: Government and the Marketplace do not mix.
This manifests itself in two ways: Stephen Harper’s reaction to the initial snub by China prior to the APEC summit, and the decision to restrain the CRTC from regulating Internet VOIP services.
In the case of the latter, it’s quite simple: the Tories believe the free market will keep prices for Net phone service affordable and competitive. This attitude has people in the know excited:
Bell chief corporate officer Lawson Hunter said he’s encouraged by the news, especially because Bernier’s speech spoke of the larger issue of stripping away more industry regulations to build Canada’s competitiveness.
“I think the signal this sends to the commission about how the government wants them to regulate in all kinds of areas (is something) you can’t really underestimate,'’ an excited Hunter said.
Listening to Bernier’s vision for the future made Hunter’s “spine tingle,'’ he added.
“It’s not only, or even primarily, the impact of (Wednesday’s) individual decision (that’s exciting), it’s just the general philosophy and direction (of deregulation) that is so fundamental, in our view, to the economy and also fundamental to the way our business is regulated.'’
Telus’s executive vice-president of corporate affairs, Janet Yale, said she also viewed Bernier’s changes as good news for the industry.
“We’re pleased with the minister’s announcement towards the kind of deregulation we’re looking for in telecommunications markets and we look forward to more to come,'’ she said.
And as for China, a third principle also comes into play:
Principle No. 3: Government must look after its citizens when citizens are abroad.
Harper and his officials said they weren’t told exactly why China abruptly cancelled the meeting. But he hinted broadly that Beijing had tried to dictate what sorts of subjects would be raised.
Harper said he wanted to raise human rights and the case of Huseyin Celil, an Uzbeki-Canadian dual citizen being imprisoned by China for alleged terrorism links. China does not recognize his Canadian citizenship and Ottawa has been aggressively lobbying for his release.
This is of course in stark contrast to the way the Libranos handled Mahar Arar, being perfectly prepared to hang him out to dry until his plight became public knowledge. Harper’s under fire because the Libranos believe his stance on human rights will cost Canada the opportunity to get access to China’s growing market. Harper’s response:
“I think Canadians want us to promote our trade relations worldwide, and we do that, but I don’t think Canadians want us to sell out important Canadian values — our belief in democracy, freedom, human rights,'’ he said Wednesday. “They don’t want us to sell that out to the almighty dollar.'’
Ambrose’s speech serves one purpose: by contrasting Liberal policies to her own, she’s signalling to the world that Canada is going to conduct world affairs differently than before. And part of that has manifested in the way the Harper / China meeting has now been set up.
And the beauty of this new direction is that, should the Liberals ever find themselves back in power, public expectation won’t allow them to regress back to their old ways.
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