The First Day of the Next Four Years

In which the Tories declare war on drugs, pedophiles, the gun registry, unions, the deficit, the, umm, Wheat Board, the Internet ...

Parliament is back in session, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government is set to legislate their dreams into reality. The Globe and Mail's John Ibbitson takes a day off from begging the Tories for a senatorial appointment to give us a nice little overview of what to expect this session, with the Tory proposal to enlarge the House of Commons by 30 seats from Alberta, B.C., and Ontario making sure that “this will not be a quiet fall.” Ditto for the just-introduced crime bill, and the threat of back-to-work legislation should Air Canada's flight attendants hit the picket lines tomorrow, which Ibbitson imagines could lead to another all-nighter filibuster from the Jack Layton-less NDP. Filibustering, “which could eat up weeks of legislative time,” is one of the few remaining arrows in the opposition's quiver. Plus, it will give all those rookies in the NDP caucus some much-needed Parliamentary practice, which at this rate, they're really going to need over the next four years.

The National Post's Kelly McParland has some fun deriding all those who feared the Conservatives would spring a “secret agenda” on an unsuspecting populace once given free rein to do what they want. You know, “the ban on abortion; the return of capital punishment; mandatory prayer in schools; rampant privatization; the end of the CBC...” (he goes on like that for some time). We're not in the business of judging the Tories on what others have said they would do, as their quite public agenda gives us more than enough material to work with. Neither do we think any credit is due to the Conservatives for not foisting a hidden agenda upon what is clearly a polarized electorate. When your cornerstone legislative goals are to make sure sex offenders are thoroughly ostracized, police have more power to spy on the public, and pot-growers spend more time in jail, you hardly need a hidden agenda to create legitimate cause for criticism.

And here we find ourselves agreeing (in some capacity) with the Sun chain's editorialists, who wonder what happened to the fiscal conservatism of which the Tories style themselves champions. “Why have 33,000 federal civil service jobs been added to the payroll since the Conservatives first took minority power five years ago?” they ask, questioning why the party's managed to overlook this broadly palatable aspect of a small-c conservative government: not spending like buffoons. Whether it's a billion here for a G20 summit, $50 million there for gazebos and garbage cans, $4 billion (at least) for new prisons, oh, and as of today, $20 million for consultancy on how to cut spending, one of the hallmarks of the Tories' tenure so far has been their unwillingness to address the needless waste of the public purse. (Add all those up and you go a long way toward slaying the deficit. Or reversing those piddling GST cuts. Just sayin'.) The Sun hopes this is one area that the Tories work on now that they have a majority. As do we, but we'll bet a fleet of F35s that they don't.