Even the article in the OP mentions how the fiscal conservative policies never materialized.
Quote:
He increased federal government spending 19 per cent even before embracing Keynesian stimulus spending with the fervour of a convert. He expanded the federal civil service by 13 per cent. He supported supply management, expanded regional development agencies, interfered with foreign investment, and implemented a series of tax reforms that made economists cringe. “Wait until the majority,” tearful fiscal conservatives whispered to themselves. “Wait until the majority.”
Then came the majority. And not much changed.
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Quote:
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Fiscal conservatives did a little better than social conservatives in the first year of the Harper majority, but the emphasis must be on the word “little.” The budget which had been touted as “transformational” was nothing of the kind. Yes, there were modest cuts, but orthodox Keynesianism calls for spending to be curtailed after a recession passes and the economy is moving up the business cycle, so there was nothing particularly radical about that. The simple truth is that the prime minister’s first budget with the free hand of a majority could have been delivered by a Liberal government led by John Manley or Paul Martin.
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__________________
"The problem with any ideology is that it gives the answer before you look at the evidence."
—Bill Clinton
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance--it is the illusion of knowledge."
—Daniel J. Boorstin, historian, former Librarian of Congress
"But the Senator, while insisting he was not intoxicated, could not explain his nudity"
—WKRP in Cincinatti
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