Oct 10
14
MP Maxime Bernier promotes liberty
National Post – Oct. 14, 2010
Maxime Bernier: a true blue believer
By Don Martin
They share a party label, but Deficit Jim and Mad Max sit in opposite corners of the big blue tent. The day after Finance Minister Jim Flaherty released an update that would make a left-lurching Liberal blush, Maxime Bernier yesterday delivered a hard-right reminder to true blue Conservatives that they have at least one voice on the government’s backbenches.
A Foreign Affairs minister until he was dumped for leaving sensitive diplomatic papers at his girlfriend’s place, the second-term Quebec MP has since enjoyed unprecedented freedom in romping off the legendary choke chain of this Prime Minister’s Office. He says precisely what he thinks and seems to double dare anyone to dish out the consequences. The PMO tells me there’s nothing it can or will do to curb Mr. Bernier’s enthusiasm for thinking far and wide outside the Conservative policy box.
Mr. Bernier went rogue again in Toronto yesterday by advocating Ottawa end transfer payments to provinces while giving legislatures more tax room to finance the health, social welfare and education services they are constitutionally obliged to deliver. For Jim Flaherty, who rolled out a blueprint on Tuesday showing continued growth in the social transfer envelope well into the next government’s mandate, the notion of surrendering $40-billion worth of fiscal clout over the provinces is a severely alien concept.
Mr. Bernier’s speech invoked the spirit of Canada’s very first Liberal prime minister, quoting Wilfrid Laurier’s view that provincial legislatures must be protected from Ottawa to assume their rightful place in Confederation. Forcing all provinces to heel under the federal government’s one-size-fits-all fiscal boot, when each one has unique population pressures and priorities, is misguided and should be eliminated, Mr. Bernier argued with the conviction of a true blue believer.