Elections: Canada's conservatives roll to victory on a platform of lowered sales and corporate taxes, avoiding climate-change legislation, promoting Arctic sovereignty and upping military spending. Is the GOP listening?
There are more than a few timid Republicans who could take a leadership lesson from Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose Tories swept to a crushing victory over the Liberal Party in elections. No one will follow an uncertain trumpet, but if you fight openly for what's right and necessary, they will follow in droves.
Harper, first elected in 2006, has never had a majority in Parliament until now. So he's had to, as they say in Washington, reach across the aisle. Yet he and his Tories never compromised their principles and made this election a referendum on them. Hopefully the GOP will heed this lesson now and for 2012.
The Conservatives now have some 164 seats out of 308 as the Liberal Party fell from 77 seats to a meager 35. The Liberals, who were always either first or second, now fall to third behind the even more leftist New Democratic Party (NDP).
Harper's victory means that planned corporate income-tax cuts will move ahead. Canada reduced the federal rate by 1.5 percentage points to 16.5% on Jan. 1, and it will fall to 15% in 2012 under legislation passed in 2007.
Both the NDP and the Liberals pledged to raise corporate taxes to fund new social programs. Sound familiar? While the Obama administration rails against the evil rich, Canada has chosen to encourage real investment and not the bloated spending Washington labels as "investment."
Another telling point is that while President Obama and Senate Democrats want to eliminate "tax breaks" for American energy companies, the Conservative victory came after the Liberals and the NDP pledged to eliminate tax breaks and subsidies for Canada's oil industry.
Harper, who comes from the conservative and energy-rich western province of Alberta, campaigned on making Canada an "energy superpower." He wasn't talking about wind turbines and solar panels, but about Alberta's oil-rich tar sands. According to Bloomberg, Canada "sits on the largest pool of oil reserves outside the Middle East."
The Obama administration, by contrast, has imposed a seven-year moratorium on most offshore drilling, placed Alaska off-limits and locked up immense reserves of shale oil and gas in the continental U.S. Harper won in part by saying to Canadians, "Drill, baby, drill."
"The big one that was at stake was the energy industry, where the Liberals and the NDP were quite willing to throw Alberta under the bus," observed James Cole, a money manager at a leading Canadian investment firm. Alaska and states bordering the Gulf of Mexico know the feeling.
Tax cuts and energy development — what a concept! As Bloomberg also reports, energy has fueled Canada's economic growth, allowing it to grow at a faster pace in the fourth quarter of 2010 than any other G-7 country. Canada has the lowest deficit and strongest currency of the group.
Harper also advocated a strong military, not only to participate in helping the war on terror in Afghanistan but also to protect the Canadian Arctic and its energy riches. While we are content to let Prudhoe Bay dry up after three decades of production and have placed ANWR and the Chukchi and Beaufort seas off Alaska off-limits, Canada is eager to develop these riches and protect them from encroachment from Russia and other Arctic powers.
"Canadians can now turn the page on the uncertainties and repeat elections of the past seven years and focus on building a great future for all of us," Harper told supporters during a victory rally in Calgary Monday night.
Maybe America can follow Canada's lead and turn a page of its own in 2012.
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