Keynes won't help the economy walk

This Center for Freedom and Prosperity video explains why Prime Minister Harper's Keynesian economic approach of spending lots and lots of money won't help our economy.




Nice music too, eh?

This is actually the condensed version.

You can see the complete video here.

Conservatives not conservative? Have your say

On the day Finance Minister Jim Flaherty unveiled his spend-happy budget I posted on this blog that the Conservative Party was now officially conservative in name only.

Well now the good folks over at the online Western Standard have put together an online poll to see how many people out there agree with me.

Before you vote, check out Tasha Kheiriddin's piece entitled, "One Liberal party was enough. We don't need two."

Future News

Love this news clip from 1981.

It's all about how one day soon we may all be reading the news on a home computer.

Imagine that.



h/t Kalim

Spending not the answer

My friend Joseph Ben-Ami from the Centre for Policy Studies has an excellent audio commentary explaining why governments can't spend their way out of recession.

Loyal to the Core: Excerpt

As you may have heard, I have a book due to come out at the end of February called Loyal to the Core: Harper, me and the NCC.

It's part memoir, part political history and part cautionary tale for Canada's conservative movement.

Anyway, today the Toronto Sun is carrying a excerpt from my book. And if you read it, you will see it's more than a little ironic in light of Tuesday's budget.

You can pre-order Loyal to the Core here.

Harper's new friend

As readers of this blog know, I am not that happy with the latest Conservative budget.

But in the interest of fairness, I will admit there are those who disagree with me.

One former provincial cabinet minister, for instance, recently praised the Harper budget, saying it was "on the right track."

Who said that?

Why it was none other than Floyd Laughren, the finance minister when Bob Rae ruled Ontario!

Coalition dead but victorious

Well the NDP-Liberal-Bloc Coalition is now officially dead.

Wow, that's a relief.

I mean, if that collection of big government leftists had managed to seize control of the government they would surely have gone on a reckless spending splurge, racked up massive deficits and .... oh wait a minute.

Never mind.

A Mug's Life

One of the perks of guesting on the Michael Coren Show is that you get to keep the mugs. (Something I just discovered today.)

CINO

Well now it's official.

The Conservative Party is conservative in name only.

Makes me yearn for the days when we had relatively fiscally conservative leaders, like Jean Chretien.

Media Alert V

I am scheduled to be on the radio show Windsor Now (CKLW) at approximately 4:48 PM to talk about the budget.

Media Alert IV

I will be on the Michael Coren Show tonight at 8:00 PM on the CTS network.

The topic of discussion will be .... no not today's budget. Instead I will be part of a panel examining the question "Are unions relevant?"

Media Alert III

Did a radio interview on The Bill Carroll Show this morning at 6:35 AM to discuss today's budget.

My main goal during that talk was to sound awake.

Also I am quoted in Barbara Yaffe's latest column.

Media Alert II

I am quoted in this Canadian Press story on tomorrow's budget.

Key line: "This (budget) is going to be a disaster for Stephen Harper," said Gerry Nicholls, who worked with Harper at the National Citizens Coalition.

Media Alert

I am scheduled to be on the Newsworld program Politics this afternoon at approximately 5:30 PM EST.

Topic: Tomorrow's budget

Conservatives must speak out

More evidence the conservative movement is getting fed up with the Tory march to left is Joseph Ben-Ami's excellent column.

Writes Ben-Ami:

So now, finally, all is revealed. It seems that the critiques were right after all; the federal Conservatives under the leadership of Stephen Harper really did have a “hidden” agenda – just not the one everyone thought. Instead of being the committed conservatives that some people feared, but that just as many people hoped for, it turns out that the Harper Conservatives were actually big-borrowing, big-spending liberals in the style of Brian Mulroney and Joe Clark.

Let's hope more conservatives make their voices heard over the next few days and weeks.

What have you done to the real Stephen Harper?

I am quoted in a Toronto Star article today, where once again I make the point about Prime Minister Harper betraying his principles.

Here's the relevant passage:

"Absolutely he has abandoned his principles ... I don't even recognize this person who is the Prime Minister of Canada," said Gerry Nicholls, who worked with Harper at the National Citizens Coalition.

Harper is a one-time head of the coalition, a non-partisan organization for the "defence and promotion of free enterprise, free speech" and accountable government. "He was a principled small-c conservative who believed that ... conservative politicians should stick by their principles," Nicholls said. "I think he began to care more about public-opinion polls than his principles."

Of course, I have been singing this song for awhile, but what's interesting is now other conservatives are finally losing patience with the Tory government.

Even long-time Harper apologist Tom Flanagan is growing disillusioned, albeit for different reasons than me.

In the same Star article where I am quoted, Flanagan complains that Harper has transformed from a conservative ideologue to a political survivor.

Says Flanagan: "He (Harper) lost the initiative by provoking the other parties into this potential coalition against him ... and now he finds himself having to put together a budget which is really a coalition budget ... the government's hand is fairly weak right now."

So much for incrementalism.

A Defenceless City

So I'm in Vancouver this weekend attending a Liberty Fund seminar and I see this street sign.

It said: "Welcome to Vancouver, a nuclear weapons free zone."

And that kind of surprised me.

I would have thought that besides doing stuff like collecting garbage and cleaning streets, citizens would expect their municipal government to provide a credible nuclear deterrent.

Media Alert

I will be a guest on the Rob Breakenridge Show tonight at 9:30 PM EST.

Topic: The deficit ... oops I mean the budget.

Reformers of the World Arise

Here's my latest column from Report Magazine.

I make the case that it's time for Reformers to take their party back.

Digging Holes

Nick Gillespie, from Reason Magazine, has a couple of ideas to stimulate the economy.