Dubbed as 'Clash of The Titans'!

In Praise of the Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act (Bill C-38)

By William Walter Kay

The Harper government’s confrontation with the opposition parties over Bill C-38 was the parliamentary manifestation of an epic clash between two titanic constituencies. In one camp are resource extraction entrepreneurs seeking less fettered access to the treasures of Western and Northern Canada. They look to Asia for investors and customers. The rival camp are rentiers from Central and Atlantic Canada who are economically and ideologically aligned with their counterparts in Western Europe and the US Northeast. They want to preserve the wealth within their realm. They favour neo-corporatist and quasi-autarkist policies.

In the May 2, 2011 election Prime Minister Harper and his Conservatives capped 5 years of leading minority governments by winning a majority of House of Commons seats. In the next 10 months they:

• pulled Canada out of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change;

• delivered notices of impending redundancy to 3,500 civil servants employed in 3 bastions of state enviro-activism (Parks Canada, Environment Canada, and Fisheries and Oceans Canada);

• slashed the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency’s budget by 43%;

• cut 10% from the budget of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (the principal propaganda organ of Canadian environmentalists);

• discontinued funding for the EcoENERGY retro-fit and renewable energy programs

• publically denounced Canadian environmentalists for: (a) hijacking consultation processes, (b) accepting funding from foreign radicals, and (c) laundering political money behind a curtain of charitable activity;

• allocated $8 million to the Canada Revenue Agency to investigate the improper use of charitable donations (a move aimed at environmental non-profit societies);

• eliminated the $547,000-a-year stipend for the 34-year-old Canadian Environmental Network (a pivotal non-profit within the Canadian green movement);

• eliminated funding for sacred green cows like the Experimental Lakes Area, Prairie Shelterbelt, etc.

• These salvos onto the environmentalists’ camp are of trifling consequence compared to the Harper government’s Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act (Bill C-38)…

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