HANNAFORD: Harper called it right about spendthrift Trudeau, back in 2015

There’s a Tik-Tok clip doing the rounds showing Stephen Harper saying his predictions during the 2015 election about what the Liberals would do, have been borne out by events. Needless to say, it's being treated by the mainstream media as if it's slightly scandalous.The Conservative Party is not commenting on it. However, having worked the party war room for the entire three months of the 2015 election, I can say with some confidence that whatever the bona fides of the disputed video, Harper certainly predicted that the Liberals would go hog wild on borrowing and raising taxes.As they did, from the moment they took power.Here's a snatch from Harper’s stump speech, Day 15 of the campaign, in Ottawa.“The threat to the middle class in this country, is the policies of Justin Trudeau and Thomas Mulcair, whose tens of billions of dollars in spending promises to their special interest groups will mean permanent deficits and tax increases that can come from only one place, and that is from the middle class…. Their carbon-tax schemes will come out of the costs of everything, everyday, middle-class families buy.”That message went, as Harper insisted on styling it, “from coast to coast to coast.” So, it’s out there.And what happened?Sure enough, the Liberal promise of three modest ‘pump-priming’ deficits followed by a return to balance in the fourth year became a nine-year succession of deficits that has more than doubled the accumulated national debt, to a mind-blowing $1.3 trillion. (It was a little over $600 billion when the spending-conscious Harper left office.)All this borrowing led to an increased demand for credit, which drove up interest rates, and so as the government needed more money, it had to pay more for it.So did you, of course.Add in the inflationary cost of a carbon tax that seeps through every stage of the production process to drive up prices, and is it any wonder that Canadians have never felt more broke? All as Harper said would be the case. It is little comfort to be told that the rate of inflation is down to 2.7% when food costs 30% more than it did two years ago. The Trudeau Liberals will blame the cost of their response to COVID-19 of course, and rehearse their old line about ‘having Canadians back.’However, that’s propaganda. Or a blatant lie, as we old speechwriters call it. But don't take it from me. With each budget, the Parliamentary Budget Officer publishes ‘Issues for Parliamentarians.’ In the document accompanying the 2022 budget, the PBO commented, “Since the start of the pandemic, the Government has spent, or has planned to spend, $576 billion in new measures — over 35 per cent, $204.5 billion, of this spending is not part of the COVID-19 Response Plan.”Get that? They used an emergency to go on a $200 billion policy spree.The simple truth is that the Trudeau Liberals don’t think grand-scale deficit spending is a problem because in their eyes, their intentions are so pure. There’s narcissism at work here, and lying is a hand-in-glove fit with it. But they really think that as they only do good, how can borrowing money be bad? And so next, they overspent $90 billion in 2022 alone.The other thing of course, is that the Trudeau Liberals have got to a point where they know they’ll lose power and as usual, it will be up to the Conservatives to sort out their mess, (while they heckle from the sidelines.)That's how it was in 2006 when Harper came to office after 11 years of the Liberals and it's how it was when Brian Mulroney saw off John Turner, (briefly Liberal leader and prime minister) before setting about the mess left by the present prime minister's father in 1984. It's the history of Canada, through the decades.I wish Mr. Poilievre luck when it's his turn.

HANNAFORD: Harper called it right about spendthrift Trudeau, back in 2015

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