Conservatism good, liberalism bad… OK?

The acidic adult orientated cartoon South Park has an uber-geek teacher character name Mr. Mackey. He stands in front of his disrespectful class and with a nasally voice spouts snippets of wisdom like, “Sex is bad… OK” and “Drugs are bad…OK.” All the while his class pick their noses, and complain that they never learn anything. Like many social satire, his character is very much true to real life. He is seen as the educated trying to install wisdom in the uneducated.

Pop culture references aside, last week, real life imitated social satire when our prime minister Stephan Harper delivered a speech at a fundraising dinner when he suggested that the current financial crisis was the result of Wall Street greed and liberal lending policies. He is quoted as saying, “Regulators may have failed to prevent it, but in the end, it was a failure of the private sector to live according to the values we as conservatives know to be true.”

‘Conservatism good, liberalism bad…OK?’ … and the masses stared picking their noses.

Harpers comments cut like a knife to many who embrace a liberal philosophy. He rightfully equated a person who lives beyond their means, which includes entities at a corporate level as being liberally irresponsible. Businesses who adopt a conservative approach to budgeting and spending do not find themselves in as deep a trough during trying times. We are seeing many large businesses who have been running under a loose financial control with their hands out, and many of these corporations are from Wall Street.

Take the recent slap-in-the-face delivered by the Wall Street bigwigs of AIG who required a $170 billion dollar bail-out from the American people, only to turn around and issue $165 million dollars in bonuses to the very people who’s liberal businesses moxie put American International Group on the brink of financial ruin. Could this be an example of a private sector business not living in accordance to the values of conservatism?

Harper definitely has a way of poking at the left-wing ‘open-minded’ folk. He does so by just speaking his mind. Right-is-right and left-is wrong, right?

He reminds me of another prime minister that held power during similar circumstances. Former prime minister, Richard B. Bennet held power from 1930 to 1935 during the worst years of the Great Depression. Like many a leader who governs during bad times, he came under great criticism.

Being a Conservative and taking the power from William Lyon Mackenzie King did not help with his popularity. But Bennet was another man who spoke his mind, and had the unfortunate position of governing Canada at the beginning of a financial crisis. Bennet, although historically stingy with the public purse during a time many hands were held out, has been treated better by history than the folks affected by his policies. He created the Bank of Canada, an institution that is credited with providing Canada with the 17th best ranked banking system in the world. His reforms created the minimum wage system, unemployment insurance and he is credited with creating the CBC! Ok, three out of four is not all that bad, however, Bennet was a man who practiced a true form conservatism.

In contrast, there is Pierre Elliot Trudeau. Unlike Bennet, he took power during times of prosperity. A true Liberal, he was responsible for establishing the Liberal party as the ‘natural governing party’. Although he is credited with repatriating the constitution and creating the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, he is considered by history as being a poor leader when it came to the economy. At the hands of this Liberal, Canada saw soaring unemployment, and inflation during the 70’s and 80’s. This became known as a condition of economic ‘stagflation’. He is also the culprit that imposed the "National Energy Program," a policy that alienated the West and drew massive funds from Alberta to the eastern provinces. In the end, his liberal guidance left Canada with a massive deficit. Unlike Bennet, Trudeau was a man that defined true liberalism.

But Harper now finds his government holding the reigns of a country that has seen record layoffs over the past 3 months. Alberta saw 5,700 people lose their jobs in February alone, giving Alberta an unemployment rate of 4.4%. Harper is governing at a time where Canada’s energy, construction, auto and print media industries are experiencing economic stressors that are seeing business closures and bottom line shrinkage.

Even though Canada is positioned to deal with this financial crisis better than most other nations, we are being dragged down by forces outside our borders. Our conservative government is being blamed for the financial instability of many businesses in the private sector.

In a time of financial crisis, business policies holding to the value of conservatism is needed for not only the government, but the private sector as well. History will judge whether Harper’s actions helped Canada through the recession. Paul Thomas, a professor of the University of Manitoba said it best, “In our system of government, with power so concentrated in the hands of the prime minister and cabinet, it’s pretty hard to evade the ultimate blame.”

So as Harper stands before the nation and tells us that “Conservatism is good.. OK?” let us hope that the classroom hearing the lesson and not gawking with a blank stare listening to ipods, or twittering as the answers to the final examination is being handed out.