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Sunday 12 October 2008
Toronto Sun endorses Harper and the Conservatives
Elections are about making choices and because fallible human beings are involved, there will never be a perfect choice.
While we respect all the national party leaders, realistically, Canadians Tuesday must choose between Stephen Harper and Stephane Dion to lead us through tough economic times.
To us, the choice for prime minister is clear. It's Harper.
For 31 months, Harper provided Canada with a stable minority government, the longest-serving continuous minority in our history.
He pursued sensible, tax-cutting policies, fulfilling the Conservative pledges to lower the GST two points, to get tough-on-crime laws enacted in a soft-on-crime Parliament, to pass a new accountability act in the wake of the Liberal sponsorship scandal and to target more money to help working families.
Harper has also proven himself on the world stage.
He's unafraid to make tough decisions and, unlike the Liberals, committed to properly funding our military and giving it a clear mandate and mission, before sending our soldiers into harm's way.
Yes, there have been disappointments -- Harper's broken promise not to tax income trusts, his disinterest in properly funding cities and his failure to significantly reduce medical wait times.
Plus, his inability to articulate a sensible, Canadian-made environmental policy outside of the job-killing Kyoto accord on climate change, which the Liberals recklessly committed us to and then did nothing to implement, having since admitted they knew Canada wasn't ready.
The bottom line is Canadians know Harper is a better leader than Dion -- they deliver that verdict almost every time they're asked to make a direct comparison by pollsters.
True, Harper failed to adapt his campaign to the sudden collapse of stock markets, the credit crunch and falling oil prices during this election.
That's worrisome because part of the prime minister's job is to rally and reassure the nation in times of crisis, not suggest a stock market crash means some good buying opportunities.
But Harper's stumble pales in comparison to Dion's chronically bad judgment on the economy and his inexplicable -- even he can't explain it -- "green shift" carbon tax.
What is easy to understand is that the last thing you should do when your economy is heading into choppy waters is impose a new, experimental tax on everything, with vague promises to keep it "revenue neutral" through other tax cuts.
Even the Liberals know Dion's "green shift" is bad policy. That's why they've stopped talking about it.
NDP Leader Jack Layton has run a good race, but his tax-and-spend policies are wrong for the country, just as a Dion-led minority Liberal government backed by the NDP would be a fiscal disaster.
Separatist Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe is irrelevant to Canadians, while Elizabeth May has established the Greens as a political force, regardless of whether they finally win a seat.
But on the big question -- who should be our prime minister -- there's no question. It's Harper.
While we respect all the national party leaders, realistically, Canadians Tuesday must choose between Stephen Harper and Stephane Dion to lead us through tough economic times.
To us, the choice for prime minister is clear. It's Harper.
For 31 months, Harper provided Canada with a stable minority government, the longest-serving continuous minority in our history.
He pursued sensible, tax-cutting policies, fulfilling the Conservative pledges to lower the GST two points, to get tough-on-crime laws enacted in a soft-on-crime Parliament, to pass a new accountability act in the wake of the Liberal sponsorship scandal and to target more money to help working families.
Harper has also proven himself on the world stage.
He's unafraid to make tough decisions and, unlike the Liberals, committed to properly funding our military and giving it a clear mandate and mission, before sending our soldiers into harm's way.
Yes, there have been disappointments -- Harper's broken promise not to tax income trusts, his disinterest in properly funding cities and his failure to significantly reduce medical wait times.
Plus, his inability to articulate a sensible, Canadian-made environmental policy outside of the job-killing Kyoto accord on climate change, which the Liberals recklessly committed us to and then did nothing to implement, having since admitted they knew Canada wasn't ready.
The bottom line is Canadians know Harper is a better leader than Dion -- they deliver that verdict almost every time they're asked to make a direct comparison by pollsters.
True, Harper failed to adapt his campaign to the sudden collapse of stock markets, the credit crunch and falling oil prices during this election.
That's worrisome because part of the prime minister's job is to rally and reassure the nation in times of crisis, not suggest a stock market crash means some good buying opportunities.
But Harper's stumble pales in comparison to Dion's chronically bad judgment on the economy and his inexplicable -- even he can't explain it -- "green shift" carbon tax.
What is easy to understand is that the last thing you should do when your economy is heading into choppy waters is impose a new, experimental tax on everything, with vague promises to keep it "revenue neutral" through other tax cuts.
Even the Liberals know Dion's "green shift" is bad policy. That's why they've stopped talking about it.
NDP Leader Jack Layton has run a good race, but his tax-and-spend policies are wrong for the country, just as a Dion-led minority Liberal government backed by the NDP would be a fiscal disaster.
Separatist Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe is irrelevant to Canadians, while Elizabeth May has established the Greens as a political force, regardless of whether they finally win a seat.
But on the big question -- who should be our prime minister -- there's no question. It's Harper.
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