By Henry McRandall
WRISEUP.COM
In a desperate, flailing bid to rescue his disastrous federal election campaign, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff has unleashed a new ad attacking the NDP (New Democratic Party) for its alleged lack of experience.
It would be fair to point out, of course, that neither Ignatieff’s Liberals nor Stephen Harper’s Conservatives had “experience” in government before they were first elected to power and the inexperience of those governments did not damage Canada.
Moreover, Michael Ignatieff himself has yet to prove that he can even run a shithouse.
He has never run anything.
No, Ignatieff returned to Canada after living in the United States for three decades and calling this U.S. his country for the sole purpose of becoming prime minister.
Apparently, no other job in this country could be good enough for this elitist scumbag whose entire claim to fame is that he used his connections to become a professor at an Ivy League college.
Clearly, Ignatieff’s Liberals have no greater claim to the credentials to govern than Jack Layton’s NDP.
The Liberals and Conservatives are fond of depicting the NDP as a tax-and-spend political party and to some extent the monicker may have some validity.
The NDP does tax and spend. But the real issue is who do they tax and what do they spend on?
While the NDP has never formed a federal government in Canada, it has at various times formed the provincial government in five Canadian provinces holding more than 60 percent of the national population.
And of the three major, national political parties – the Conservatives, the Liberals and the NDP – the NDP actually has by far the best record in terms of balancing government budgets. On the contrary, the Liberals and the Conservatives have horrible records in terms of balancing budgets – either federally or provincially.
And while the federal NDP may be making some lofty promises if they win the May 2 election, their proposed budget has been fully measured out and accounted for. It is a solid program.
But more importantly, consider their proposals for taxing and spending.
It is Canada’s corporations and its wealthy – who have enjoyed an ever-expanding tax holiday for the past 30 years – that the NDP proposes to tax – those who are most able to pay.
And what does it plan to spend these revenues on? It plans to spend them on job-creating health, education and social programs that would benefit the masses – the poor, the working class and the middle class – rather than the one-percent socioeconomic elite that already owns almost everything in Canada worth owning but is never willing to admit that it has far, far more than its fair share.
The socioeconomic elite to whom the Liberals and Conservatives give their entire loyalty have been sucking Canada dry since the country was founded. But what have they ever given back?
It’s time to elect an NDP federal government so that the masses – the poor, the working class and the middle class – can finally have their fair share and so that the corporations and the wealthy can finally pay their fair share.