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Old 04-23-2012, 07:14 PM   #3666
SebC
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jacks View Post
Fiscally the Liberals were pretty good, of course they pretty much governed the opposite of what they promised to get elected. When we have a track record of majority governments, Harper vs. Cretien, then we can look back and compare. Also, the current Liberal party is a shell of it's former self.
I agree with most of that. Dion was terrible, Rae plays the game well but I think he's still a bit of lefty. I think Ignatieff would've done pretty well as a PM (better than Harper), but was never given a fair shot because voters were still hell-bent on punishing the Liberals for sponsorship and Dion (much like I think Redford is bearing the brunt of Stelmach's mis-steps, yet would probably lead a better government than Smith).

I don't see a need to restrict the comparison to Harper and Chretien majorities... wouldn't Paul Martin's minority government be a fair comparison? He didn't increase spending 40% in that time, did he? Yet Harper was forced to because he had a minority? Doesn't hold up. But if we're going to wait, I think Harper will look worse. It'll take time before we start seeing the impacts of the omni-bus crime bill, for instance, but we can predict that they won't be good based on the experiences of other jurisdictions.
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