rabble.ca Canadian federal election blog

Conservatives create “winning conditions” for shock therapy to come.

by Bruce Campbell

The Harper Conservatives are offering voters a “steady hand at the
wheel” to navigate the economy through turbulent waters ahead. They
say the other parties are a risky choice. It is a message that plays
to people’s fears and insecurities. It’s the same hot-button subtext
behind their “tough-on-crime’ and “war -on-terror” messaging. And it
appears that many worried Canadians may buy into it. Is this trust
warranted?

Stephen Harper is the first Canadian prime minister to really espouse
classic free market economics. For Harper, the market is the prime
arbiter of economic activity and government’s economic role is to step
aside except when it comes to enforcing free market disciplines.

Equally worrisome, Harper sees social programs as provincial
responsibilities; so what he does not cut, he will offload. We already
know he has no interest in fixing the badly damaged unemployment
insurance program — the single most important support for workers
laid off during recession.

Harper’s hand is more likely to be off, than on, the economic wheel.
And ironically, as the illusion of the self-regulating market is
abruptly replaced by the visible hand of American corporate socialism
emerging from the rubble of the Wall Street meltdown, Harper’s
approach seems oddly out of touch with today’s reality.

For ordinary people, the Conservative approach is actually the more,
not less, risky option because it transfers risk from the
collectivity (government) to the individual. To those who find
themselves unemployed, unable to rise out of poverty despite working
multiple jobs, unable to find affordable housing—it says: You’re on
your own!!

Will events cause him change his stripes? Hardly! He will compromise
where political expediency requires. But he will not waver from his
deeply held goal to remake Canada his extreme conservative image

An economic crisis — Naomi Klein shows us in her magnificent book The
Shock Doctrine— creates an opportunity to advance unpopular
conservative policies when society is in a state of trauma.

Harper has prepared the groundwork over the last two-and-a-half years
for just such an opportunity. Major military spending and massive tax
cuts have eviscerated the $12 billion fiscal surplus, which would have
helped cushion the impact of a downturn.

With the surplus gone, recession looming and deficits to be avoided at
all costs, the conditions are ripe for the Harper government to apply
shock therapy to our social programs if and when the crisis hits.
Klein’s book shows us how to recognize and resist conservative shock
therapy. Let’s hope it won’t be necessary.