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Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate
Azure: What concrete steps did the Conservatives take to get Canada through the recession?
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I said they steered us through the recession and into a pretty optimistic recovery.
Most of the problems during this 'recession' has revolved around the banking sector, and Canada did pretty well because of good regulations being in place. We weren't caught up in any sub-prime mortgage 'scams', or anything like that. Were the Conservatives the reason for that? Certainly not. Paul Martin, and numerous other people who guided Canada prior to the Conservatives taking power were the cause of that regulation.
But the Conservatives have steered us through some tough times, but by staying the course, cutting taxes, and working with the banks to make sure the banking sector doesn't fall apart.
No, its not 'sexy' or anything, but it got the job done. Jobs are up, economy is doing relatively well, deficit is falling, and if the US can get their act together we'll do pretty darn good considering we ran into problems that Canada had no part in causing. This speaks to a long line of financial ministers doing a great job, and the current one is no exception to that.
I have my share of problems with the Conservatives, but until we come out of this recession completely, and start rebounding in a big way, which we will because of energy and our strong aerospace industry, I don't think its wise to start calling elections.
IMO, staying the course is essential right now. Of course, that doesn't mean that the public can't get pissed off with certain things like the non-mandatory census forms. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the Harper government turned around and worked with the Liberals to reform the census form a bit(remove jail time), but kept it mandatory. Have governments made mistakes before? Absolutely. Do we have to spend $500 million every single time they do on an election? Well, you and IFF might want that, because you want the Liberals to rule the country, and while the Liberals might be appealing to me too in the future, except for their moron of a leader, I would be cautious to call an election now. Economically what we have is working, and we shouldn't disrupt that because of some petty census issue that can be solved by internal debate in the House of Commons.