By Jennifer Ditchburn, The Canadian Press
OTTAWA - Stephen Harper made two very different sales pitches for his economic plan this week: one a public pep talk to jittery Canadians, the other a private smoothing-of-the-feathers for uneasy conservatives...
holy, Harper just dropped some bombshells. In a private meeting with conservative insiders, harper attacked obama saying that his tax increases on the highest bracket of taxpayers was a horrible idea. (never mind the fact that in canada, we pay way higher taxes than in the states)
Then he went on saying that if the liberals were in charge when hammas attacked isreal that canada would have supported isreal and was illuding to something bad happening to isreal if the liberals would have appointed liberal judges etc.
Then shockingly, he attacked libertarians, and basically said they don't live in the real world.
Harper has never had a majority, and what is odd is that in public he says one thing, and then behind closed doors he says another. Before the stimulus package, harper was planning on running a 6 billion dollar budget deficit, then after liberals and the rest of the opposition threatened to trow him out, he inventively decided to run a 80 billion dollar budget deficit (which is high in canadian standards)
how do ur principles change so much in one month that u go from a 6 billion surplus to an 80 billion deficit
my problem with harper is that, he ends up doing what is JUST barely acceptable, but only after trying his hardest to do the most right-winged thing immaginble first, and only when that fails does he do something centrist
Harper attacks Liberals, Obama in 'private' speech to conservatives click tittle for full article
Some telling exerpts from article
The other was behind closed doors Thursday evening to a group of key conservatives - sharply partisan remarks that ripped into the Liberals, libertarians, the Obama administration's tax policies and Wall Street.
"Imagine the stance Canada would have taken when Hezbollah and Hamas terrorists attacked Israel. Imagine how many Liberal insiders and ideologues would be now in the Senate, the courts and countless other federal institutions and agencies - I should say, how many more," Harper said to laughter.
"Imagine the costs of going through with the Kyoto and Kelowna accords with no plan to actually achieve anything on either the environment or aboriginal affairs. Imagine what a carbon tax would be doing to our economy in the middle of a global recession."
He twice pointed disdainfully to tax hikes U.S. President Barack Obama introduced for the highest tax brackets.
Harper urged the crowd not to "forget that Conservatives being in power has made an enormous difference."
He went on to deride the spendthrift culture in the United States and the recklessness of Wall Street. Harper, who has been described as a libertarian in the past, surprised some in the audience by critiquing those same ideals.
"The libertarian says, 'Let individuals exercise full freedom and take full responsibility for their actions.' The problem with this notion is that people who act irresponsibly in the name of freedom are almost never willing to take responsibility for their actions."
Mike Brock, a Conservative blogger who attended the conference, called the speech bewildering.
"The treatment to classical liberals and libertarians - of which I consider myself - was nothing short of stunning," he wrote.
"The condescension was literally dripping from his mouth. Was this his response to the disillusionment that libertarians across the country have had to his government and its policies of late?
"If it was, it did not build any bridges. Rather, it burnt them right down."