Article content continued

There is room, I maintain, to debate whether we should reach those targets. But there is very little room to debate whether we will; even with an onerous carbon tax we’re going to miss by miles. Yet Scheer is meant to be the guy in touch with reality.

Even more alarming is that our “leaders,” provincial and federal, cannot see the consequences of continued reckless borrowing, including the menacing piling up of unfunded liabilities for public-sector pensions

Then there’s what politicians are saying about deficits. Once upon a time it was unwise to believe what they claimed the deficit would be tomorrow. Now it is little short of insane to believe what they say it is today, because of their deceptive habit of moving borrowing off-book.

Even more alarming is that our “leaders,” provincial and federal, cannot see the consequences of continued reckless borrowing, including the menacing piling up of unfunded liabilities for public-sector pensions, especially if we also pursue economic policies that choke off wealth creation. Yet far too many Canadians are not alarmed, by what politicians are doing or what they are babbling about it.

So back to the reality thing. Since the debate is normally about what is real, and since it is conservatives who typically use phrases like “the real world,” let me try to list more specifically what too many Canadian governments, and citizens, are not coming to grips with.

First, one more time, incentives matter, to business and consumers. If it becomes too difficult or expensive to operate in Canada investment will go elsewhere. Not all of it and not immediately, of course. But slowly and inexorably.

Photo by Justin Tang / THE CANADIAN PRESS

Second, you can’t redistribute wealth that never got generated. Yet governments dependent on ever-larger streams of revenue scorn to foster prosperity. Federal finance minister Bill Morneau pledges to fix the gender gap while scorning “knee-jerk reactions” to U.S. tax cuts. And B.C.’s premier blocks pipelines, supports carbon taxes, then complains that gas is expensive.