Hypocrisy

Out of twenty prominent economists polled by the Globe and Mail about the most recent GST cut, eighteen said it was bad policy. The Globe agreed and launched its own crusade against the cut with successive, cutting editorials.

At around the same time, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion let slip to a reporter that his party might consider raising the GST back to 6% to finance an income tax cut. This, economists agreed, was good policy.

Waiting for the Globe’s reaction to Dion’s proposition, one would have guessed that it would receive the paper’s energetic endorsement. What could be better for a newspaper that calls itself opinion shaping than a national party leader borrowing its ideas?

But in the space of a day, the increase the Globe had been yearning for became bad politics. In the most hypocritical fashion, the paper shifted from attacking the cut to attacking Dion for wanting to reverse it. Suddenly, Dion was a naïve junior party leader and Harper once again the admired Machiavellian chess master; the real leader.

Newspapers preach political courage and good policy, but in the end, they choose to endorse leaders based on their capacity at reading public opinion rather than their willingness to do the right thing.