Friday, February 15, 2008

What Will a Harper Majority Bring?

Let's say Harper gets his majority. I'm not going to get into the hows and wherefores. If you've been paying attention you know how I think that's going to happen anyway.

What might we expect?

This is the place for predictions so don your Cassandra frocks and let's get to it.

We know the Wheat Board is on the hit list now that we've been told "all bets are off". For sure the barley desk will be dismantled. Ill will may even lead them to dismantle the entire enterprise.

Gun registration, long gun for sure and handgun less certainly, will be eliminated. It's even possible that they're in thrall to the NRA enough to de-regulate ownership of assault weapons.

We know that nationally funded programs will no longer be on the table. There will be none initiated. Some existing programs may see existing funding cut or eliminated. And that could indeed include nationally funded health care, turning it over to the provinces entirely. The Canada Research Council will certainly see deeper cuts. Which other national programs might they slash or throw away? Or privatize?

There will be an even greater acceleration of military spending. Which will require even more deployments in order to keep the justifications for the spending rolling along.

Our foreign policy will be whatever Washington says it is irrespective of which party takes the US election in November.

What else?

It's irresponsible not to speculate.

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