A Promise Made

Robert Service would have many hearty laughs at the number of promises that politicians will make on both sides of the 49th parallel in the next month or two. Unlike the famous promise made in the land of the midnight sun in Service’s poem, we do not expect many of the promises that form the platforms of the various political parties to be kept. Some old-timers may recall that Ontario scoundrel Harris who kept too many of his promises, but overall, our politicians follow the Dalton McGuinty style of promise keeping.

There are exceptions. Our current Mayor has covered most of his promises made in his first term, although a few of them had to be tweaked a little. Something about a sports centre in the second term has yet to be defined, but not bad, not bad. Stevie Harper sort of kept some of his election promises although it seems we did not clearly understand what he meant and he had to clarify a few promises for us. The Opposition scuttled some of his promises, like the one about a 4-year set term and fixed election dates.

News about pre-election call platform changes and the Liberal party caught my attention. M Dion has been peddling his Green Shift plan for the environment for at least a year. He stood firm on his ideals until the threat of an early election caused him to re-assess his plan. It seems he did not have it quite right for the farmers and the truckers, so he had to tweak it a little. The Conservatives have been deriding the Green Shift with ads and newspaper articles, but that was to be expected from a party that is not certain there is any reason for concern over climate change. Rather than rely on biased news reports from the partisan Toronto papers, I checked the web to get the Liberals’ details on Green Shift.

The first thing that you notice on the Liberal Party web page is that they want you to give them money. I heard they were broke, but begging on the web? Anyway, they had a ‘calculator’ program that would show the ‘average’ Canadian just how much money she or he would get back on their taxes under Green Shift. Very cute, but I wanted to know how much it was going to cost me. I read the item again, and other than saying it was a 4-year plan that would increase the carbon costs each year, there was nothing I could put my finger on. Maybe I missed it, but the Liberals only want me to see the half of the plan that doesn’t hurt. Sort of like buying a pig in a poke, I suppose. Those Western farmers were onto that one.

One other item that I would like cleared up in the list of promises made is the GST. The economists said that Harper cutting the tax to 5% would rain havoc on our economy and yet that seems not to be the case. Just look at all the extra cash we had laying around in Ottawa that Stevie is tossing about now! But M Dion mentioned something about bringing the rate back up. Add the current GST to the new GST (Green Shift Tax) and I can see the old Visa card taking a real beating. Please tell us, Monsieur, what this is going to cost us.

All I want is some clarity before I mark my X, punch a hole, fill in a square or whatever we are doing on the ballot this election. So far, in Nipissing, it looks like the old two-horse race between the Libs and Cons but maybe the NDP will yet find a candidate. Without giving away my vote, I am sure not going to vote for the guy who called this early election. This was almost as bad, in my books, as that Tory fellow wanting religious schools in the province! I may end up being like the wag who won’t ever vote Tory again because Sir John A couldn’t hold his liquor . . . what kind of people do we have in Ottawa anyway?

This whole thing of making promises should be ignored and we should pick the one person who can best lead the country. And leading this country means getting along very well with our big neighbour to the South and the new neighbour to the East. With the mishmash of wannabe presidents and vice presidents on the ticket in the States, that may be a challenge. Unfortunately, we won’t know who that Prez will be when we go to the polls. It is another reason why breaking the fixed election dates bothers me. That offset election date with the US was a very good idea that might have influenced our choice of party / leader.

Perhaps the age of Robert Service has passed: “A promise made is a debt unpaid.” Welcome to the reality of today when NL Premier Danny Williams who, in referring to Stevie said, “A promise made is not a promise kept.” That is something we all ought to keep in mind during the next month.