Are our Conservatives fiscally conservative?

The crux of Stephen Harper's re-election campaign is that his party alone can lead Canada through the economic turmoil of falling commodity prices and a loss of demand for our manufactured products.
He points out that the Liberals with their new tax (albeit a carbon tax) are a risk to the pocketbooks of Canadians. He states that the NDP and its past provincial governments, especially that of Bob Rae in Ontario, are not known for their balanced budgets. He tells us that his party has a strong record when it comes to running our economy. Is this fact or yet another piece of fiction that he is hoping the "beer and popcorn crowd" will believe.
The Harper government is actually larger than the previous Liberal government. Like their philosophical allies to the south they are also the largest spending government in our countries history. All this while our country is suffering an economic downturn. Our GDP growth currently sits below that of most of our fellow G8 countries. The Conservatives have cut the GST by two percentage points and made huge cuts to corporate taxes. The average Canadian does not see a large benefit from these measures (A GST cut benefits those whom have income to purchase big-ticket items) but it has served to shrink the tax base which the government can draw on for its funding. A 1% cut in the GST equals roughly 2 billion dollars in lost tax revenue. Not surprisingly the federal government racked up a half billion dollar deficit during the first two months of this fiscal year. That's versus a 2.6 billion dollar surplus from the year before.
Let Harper campaign on his record as a financial steward all he wants. This Canadian will be looking at the facts, while ignoring the fiction.



-Son