Canada Deserves Big Thinking
October 19, 2007
by Antony Anderson
In the lead up to the throne speech, the Harper government discussed allocating $725 million for a tax cut that would work out to a $30 refund for every Canadian. This PR gesture is irritating for its emptiness. But more importantly, it hints at a profoundly limited vision of the country.
The refund echoes the government's response to child care, when it opted to give parents with preschool-aged children $100 a month. This doesn't even begin to cover the real costs of daycare, and God knows how much Ottawa is spending to administer these hundreds of thousands of cheques every month.
The larger message is that Ottawa has left us to figure out our child-care problems on our own. This would be fine if there were personal solutions to what is truly a communal problem. As always, those with more money will have far more choices.
So with child care and the tax refund, Harper avoids acting on a national scale. Compare what would have happened if our previous prime ministers had acted with a similar mindset.
If Sir John A. Macdonald had thought like Harper, he never would have built a national railway. Instead, Macdonald would have given Canadians a voucher to sort out their own travel arrangements from sea to sea.
R.B. Bennett would not have brought in a national broadcaster. He might have given us free movie tickets.
If Lester Pearson had thought like Harper, he would never have enacted medicare at the federal level. He would have given us each some kind of medical coupon– the same with Louis St. Laurent and national hospital insurance.
The potential tax refund gets us down to the core of Harper's vision of the country – he doesn't seem to see us as a nation of citizens engaged on a magnificent national project together.
In his eyes, it seems, Canada is a mere marketplace full of disconnected consumers. So we get $100 a month for child care, $30 for ourselves and another percentage point off the GST.
Instead of these minuscule amounts directed toward individuals, imagine the impact of nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars on our culture, our armed forces, our foreign service or the debt – or anything else in the federal realm of spending. This would require the government to dream and act on a national canvas.
Obviously, grand schemes bring with them the potential for grand mismanagement and endless chicanery. And maybe Harper is smarter than all of us with his modest measures and promises.
Maybe the majority of Canadians prefer small gestures. Brian Mulroney challenged the nation with free trade, the GST and his constitutional odyssey. For all his ambitious, brave efforts, we threw out his party.
The wily Jean Chrétien sensed our exhaustion from all this nation building and never brought in any kind of grand national scheme. His reward for modest, cautious government? Citizens kept on voting for him in droves.
In politics there are no final destination points and no eternal answers – just a series of choices and compromises.
Hopefully, Harper will occasionally shift his field of view from the individual consumer to the vast number of citizens from sea to sea.
Mr. Prime Minister, don't nickel and dime us on the nation we're creating together.
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Antony Anderson is a freelance television writer and producer in Toronto.
