To the Editor:
Pretty well everyone agrees that 2013 was an "annus horribilis" for Stephen Harper, due to a steadily worsening ethics scandal in which the RCMP are alleging fraud, bribery and breach of trust within his inner circle. And it's not over.
For months, Mr. Harper has tried to duck, dodge, deflect and obfuscate - anything but answer questions about the corruption unfolding around him. With a Cabinet shuffle, yet another prorogation, a Throne Speech, over-torqued policy pronouncements, lots of foreign travel and mega-bucks spent on government advertising (not to mention the re-emergence of his sweater and piano), Mr. Harper has sought desperately to "change the channel".
But nothing has worked. Polling now shows most Canadians think their country is plunging in the wrong direction under the Harper government, and a startling 60 per cent or more don't believe or trust the Prime Minister.
It's more than a question of integrity, as crucial as that is. The public's angst is also driven by growing doubts about this government's basic competence - on fundamental things like the economy.
Just over a year ago, many people who thought the Harper regime was strong economically were taken aback by the F-35 fighter jet fiasco where the true costs suddenly ballooned from less than $10-billion to something closer to $50-billion. Both the Parliamentary Budget Officer and the Auditor-General found the government's handling of this file to be incompetent and dishonest.
Conservative economic credibility has also been tarnished by Mr. Harper's excessive tax-paid government advertising - advertising that conveys no useful public information, but seeks only to polish the Conservatives' image. The nauseating tally to date is about half a billion dollars, including $2.5-million to advertise their so-called "Jobs Grant" which doesn't exist and to which the Harper government is contributing not a single new penny of federal investment. Again, that strikes most people as incompetent and dishonest.
Canadian economic growth for the year was a paltry 1.6 per cent, down from the previous year, which was also down from the year before that, which was also down from the year before that. In fact, Mr. Harper's economic growth record is the worst of any Prime Minister since R.B. Bennett.
And looking ahead, Canada is now projected to lag below the average growth for G-7 countries over the next five years. So much for the idle boast that we're doing so much better than everyone else.
Our dollar is dropping in value, meaning the United States is now perceived to be out-performing Canada. A low dollar may give a superficial boost to Canadian exports, and that would be welcome, given Mr. Harper's chronic and worsening trade deficit. But it will also increase the cost of imports and camouflage the persistent underlying problem of poor Canadian productivity which is a key reason why middle-class incomes have been flat and stagnant for far too long.
For the whole year, Harper government policies generated barely a hundred thousand net new jobs in the whole country. Some 60,000 full-time jobs were lost in December alone. It was the worst performance since the end of the recession.
Not only was unemployment up to 7.2 per cent once again, meaning there were 270,000 MORE people out of work and actively looking for a job than before the recession, the labour force "participation rate" was down by a full percentage point compared to pre-recession figures. That means more than 350,000 people who should be active in the job market have dropped out.
Bread-and-butter issues like these are adding to the public's multiple reasons for not trusting this Prime Minister - people have grown weary of his grinding mediocrity.
Ralph Goodale, MP, Wasca
