Stephen Harper Is So Smart, It's Scary

Over the last few days, the Conservatives have been throwing money at the environment.



Let's just ignore the fact that these are programs the Liberals came up with that were cancelled after Harper took power, shall we?

Between replacing Rona Ambrose, sacrifical lamb, with John Baird, giving BC $2 million to help fix Stanley Park and $30 million to protect the rainforest and reviving Liberal programs while calling them their own, Harper has outmaneuvered the Liberals. The Conservatives have gone green.

At the same time, the government has backed out of a promise to exclude renewable resource revenue from the equalization payments. Now they will be excluding half of the revenue(except for the provinces that have an Accord - Newfoundland/Labrador and Nova Scotia). Saskatchewan, through some miracle of math, has gone from a 'have-not' province to a 'have'.

The payments break down like this (in millions):

Newfoundland and Labrador - 477
Prince Edward Island - 291
Nova Scotia - 1,308
New Brunswick - 1,435
Quebec - 6,462
Ontario - 0
Manitoba - 1,703
Saskatchewan - 0
Alberta - 0
British Columbia - 0

Total committed to transfer payments - 11,676

Source: PDF of Flaherty's letter to Sask's Minister of Finance

This means that Quebec is getting a total of 55.3% of the transfer money. That more than satisfies the Bloc's demand for $3.9 billion or they would force an election.

I still haven't quite figured out why Nunavut, NWT and the Yukon aren't included in the equalization formula. That's kind of irrelevant at the moment however, they don't have as many seats as Quebec.

To sum things up -

1) Go green, cutting the Liberal and Green party off at the knees
2) Give Quebec everything they ask for to secure seats
3) Bribe the environmentalists in BC - who happen to live on the coast where - tada! - Stanley Park and the rainforest are
4) Break promises to Alberta and Saskatchewan because who else are they going to vote for?

I may not like Harper, but I have to admire his strategy. The man is brilliant.





[edit on 22-1-2007 by Duzey]

Initially I was like, "Oh Man! I can't wait for the punch line on this one!". I was anxiously reading your post waiting for the moment, waiting... waiting, and then I realized, this actually is brilliant.



Undermining the opponent, and doing it efficiently. Most of the general public are only going to see headlines, which will come in handy with this "ploy". Quebec? If I hear one damn article coming out of the Province which is whining about their current situation or the Harper Administration, I may jump a flight and slap a few of them. Becoming vocal and using your leverage as a threat is working wonders for the French these days.

I was relatively surprised to see how much Nova Scotia is coming down with in this agreement.

Either way, Harper did his homework and actually deserves some kudos for this one. Although I am "slightly" disapointed that there was no punchline. I was sure the topic was complete sarcasm.

Oh how I underestimate our "Commander in Chief".

Oh how I wish there could have been a punch line.

I always knew he was intelligent, but this moves him up to brilliant. After he combined the two conservative parties into one, his core group of voters has nobody else to vote for. He can do almost anything and they will still vote for him, he's the only game in town. This leaves him free to do whatever he has to do to get votes from outside his party.

Stephen Harper's only priority is a majority government.