Canadians are ‘simplistic’

Toronto Star’s editorial of today discuss Harper’s flipflops on deficits. Harper wasn’t forthright during the election about the economic reality and now he’s saying voters are too “simplistic” if they expect balanced budget? Dion was stupidly too honest during the last days of the election campaign when he admitted that some of his platform wouldn’t be enforceable during the current economic crisis. Harper was quick to point his finger at Dion and attack him as having no vision for Canada. I think Canadians are not dumb to the extent that they can’t understand the need to have deficits; but it’s hard for Canadians to forgive politicians being dishonest to play down an important issue to their political advantage during an election. To this end, Canadians were “simplistic” when they chose to believe Harper.

BTW, The Star’s cartoon of the day is so cute. Please check it out. :)

Having discovered his inner Keynes, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is now saying fiscal stimulus and deficit financing are “essential” to avert economic disaster. He even suggests that Canadians who cling to a belief in balanced budgets are guilty of “simplistic” thinking.

This would be the same Stephen Harper who declared as recently as Oct. 14 (election day) in a front page article in the Star: “We’ll never go back into deficit.”

Harper can’t argue that circumstances have changed since Oct. 14. The financial meltdown was already well under way then, and most mainstream economists – like the legendary John Maynard Keynes in the 1930s – were saying that maintaining a balanced budget in the face of the economic headwinds was utterly wrongheaded.

If Canadians are thinking simplistically, then, it is because politicians like Harper refused to be straight with them during the recent election campaign.

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