One ought not to speak ill of the dead, nor inflict more
grief on the aggrieved. Still, the
instant hagiography surrounding Jim Flaherty will attach some burrs.
Through his actions to protect himself, Jim Flaherty
gleefully destroyed the lives of others.
He knew it, he loved it, and he did it for partisan, un-Canadian
purposes.
This, this was the man who so hated Canada, who was so vilely partisan, that he
actually said that Ontario
was the worst place in the world to do business. Even his far-right comperes suggested that it
was unpragmatic, foolish, and childish of him to be so ideologically bound that
he actually sought to destroy the finances of his own country. For smearing Canada around the world, now he is
hailed. (http://www.nationalpost.com/related/topics/Economists+warn+against+Flaherty+attacks+Ontario/360520/story.html)
Hm.
Like it or not, Canada, from wherever you sit in SK or BC or
no matter how your electoral map is being gerrymandered by the poil on your
butts, Ontario matters to this country and it matters to you if you are
Canadian.
I don’t think that politicians in Ireland
or the United States
step out to make partisan speeches bent on damaging their own countries, as
Flaherty did. This was a man whose
ideology was so pure that he would take money from Canadian citizens and then
burn it in front of them while he, as finance minister, told the rest of the
world that they should have nothing to do with Canada. Canada doesn’t need any more
patriots like that. Go be finance
minister of Ireland,
and find out how sweet that pie tastes.
Fact is, Jim Flaherty had a peachy job and he profited from hating Canada around the world; his family and children
will be able to retire to Ireland
in ways few Irish, or Canadian citizens, can imagine. Pity the man hated Canada so, for purely ideological
and partisan reasons.
Flaherty, of course, was pivotal in driving
Ontario into the
ground.
When Bob Rae opened David
Peterson’s books and realized what calamities confronted him, Bob Rae did the
right thing.
He increased spending and
he raised taxes.
Jim Flaherty slavishly
emulated the correct Bob Rae years later (handing out money to banks and auto
companies and so on while demanding that CANADIAN taxpayers, not the banks or
the companies and their foreign-controlled head offices, pay it all back), all
the while smugly hating Canada and regretting Canada’s un-Tory taxation across
the world stage.
Jim Flaherty ate the
very vomit he spewed on others, and never with a twinkle in his eye.
No, his eyes were elsewhere—on the big job in
the
U.S., or the misty
motherland of
Ireland.
Flaherty, of course, sought, as Mike Harris’s
henchman, to drive Ontario further into the ground and cripple its economic
might by undermining its public sector and infrastructure and human
capital.
But, like criminal entitlement
chief Tony Clement, he was all ok with gazebos in the riding that got him
elected and paid his pension and secured his family (and ONLY his and his family
alone) for generations (
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/02/14/kelly-mcparland-auto-companies-thrive-on-governments-that-are-happy-to-pay-the-ransom/).
Jim Flaherty learned entitlement the
right way—a long affiliation with Conservatives who sucked money from working
Canadians while telling those Canadians that they had to work harder (to
support Jim Flaherty and HIS family).
Now, here’s where I begin to support Jim Flaherty. He was such a dyed-in-the-any-country-but-Canada-wool
ideologue that it was amazing to see him actually start to smarten up, well,
well into middle age, and realize that, yes, he actually did, kind of, have
some responsibilities. Clearly, it came
as a tremendous shock to an ideologue like Jim Flaherty that he actually had to
sit around the world table with world finance ministers who were—SHOCK—actually
concerned about and not denigrating of their own countries. This must have baffled Jim Flaherty beyond
belief—the idea that one could act on behalf of others who *didn’t* pay you to
get re-elected. It is a long way from Whitby.
I think Jimbo was astonished and taken aback by this, this idea that a world
(yes, a world) existed outside cheap dirty nasty Conservative auto-town politics. Perhaps for the first time in his life, well
into his 40s, he might have realized that his actions weren’t just about making
his family rich, but that they could also implicate other people. Jim Flaherty might have met his own
neighbours for the first time in his 50s!! To that end, he made a sober and
unpopular decision around income trusts.
As he left office, he meekly queried Conservative ideology about
income-splitting, a financial game designed to enrich Conservative supporters
and disempower Canadians. When we think
we’re approaching our Maker, we all get a bit teary eyed and reflect on what we’ve
done. Jim Flaherty’s last gesture, as he
dealt with illness, was (before his heartfelt and teary-eyed paean to the true Tory criminal entitlement achievements of the Fords) to realize that, in the end, all of his ideology and
all of his hatred that he spewed on others could come home to roost, even on
him. He, too, could die, and not enjoy
the fruits of his taxationlessness. Most
Canadians aren’t like Jim Flaherty and his family; few will ever enjoy the
benefits he and his family have enjoyed and will enjoy, despite his modest
attainments outside of politics.
Jim Flaherty’s passing ought to be a lesson to all
Conservative ideologues, including the present poil on our body politic: you
may never live to enjoy the hatred you have spewed on others, so might as well
try to be decent and live while you can.
On a completely personal note, I liked Flaherty more as he
aged. He was a Conservative ideologue
slowly accustoming himself to the complexities of the world—and unlike many fellow
travellers, he seemed to accept that challenge.
He went from a child to a man and then death, and we will all find our
ways there, severally and individually.
-zr
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