For those who have been checking facts, this article from PressProgress provides an interesting read. Go to the link to watch the associated videos and see all charts.
AUGUST 08, 2015 by PressProgress
7 times Stephen Harper misled Canadians during the debate
If you thought there was
a lot of truthiness flying around at the first debate of the election, you are
not alone.
Here are seven of the
biggest factual errors made by Stephen Harper at Thursday's debate:
1. "The
reality" is Harper doesn't have a balanced budget
On two separate occasions
during the leaders debate, Stephen Harper claimed Canada has a balanced budget.
"We have a budget
that is balanced now and other countries don't," Harper said, later
explaining "the reality is the figures out of the Department of Finance
show that so far this year we are substantially in surplus."
Unfortunately for Harper,
the Finance Canada
report he referenced only looks at April and May. Another report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer looks
ahead and takes into account dire new projections for the Canadian economy
released by the Bank of Canada.
The PBO's projection says
Canada will not balance its budget and will run a deficit of $1 billion this
year, meaning Harper will run his eighth deficit in a row.
2. "The rest of the
economy" is not growing
Did you miss this one?
Seconds after Harper let slip that Canada may be in a recession after all, he began
to explain that the "contraction" of the economy is
"exclusively" or "almost exclusively in the energy sector"
and "the rest of the economy is growing."
This is false. According
to the latest data released by Statistics Canada just last week, the biggest
contraction in the economy is not happening in the energy sector -- it's happening
in the manufacturing sector.
Sharp declines in
manufacturing, energy, utilities and wholesale trade (along with finance and
the public sector) caused the economy to contract by 0.2% in May, while only
construction, retail and "others" saw any growth.
Meanwhile, new job numbers released Friday by Statistics Canada show Canada lost 8,300 jobs in construction last month, 4,600
jobs in manufacturing and 2,000 jobs in the energy sector, although these have
been off-set by new jobs in the service industry.
3. Cutting corporate
taxes magically increases revenues?
During the debate, Harper
said "the reality is" thanks to his government's corporate tax cuts,
Canada's "tax revenues actually went up from the business sector."
Yet as the chart below
shows, corporate tax revenue (blue bars) is nowhere near what it was before Harper
began slashing taxes for corporations.
4. Harper's backbenchers
are operating "more freely" than ever?
Although Harper's former
backbenchers claim he's so controlling they're treated like "trained seals," Harper insists he allows
them to operate "more freely" than MP's have been allowed in decades.
How free are they? Judging by this video, it seems Conservative MPs even have the
freedom to monotonously read the exact same words into a video camera:
Harper also responded to criticism of his environmental record (the worst in the industrialized world, by the way) by claiming "greenhouse gas emissions have actually gone down."
Is that true?
6. Harper's own chart shows Canada does not have the "strongest employment growth in the G7"
Harper also claimed Canada has "the strongest employment growth in the G7." Is that true?
According to a chart in Harper's own budget document, the U.S. has had stronger "growth in employment" than Canada:
7. How rigorous was the Northern Gateway pipeline project's environmental assessment?
Well, 300 scientists signed a letter that accused Northern Gateway's Joint Review Panel of only weighing the "economic benefits" while taking a "narrow view of the environmental risks and costs."
That and the Panel's review of the "environmental burdens" were only "five short paragraphs” long.
And all this after misleading PR campaigns, Harper's ministers labeling critics as 'radicals', and the Conservative government tabling reports that claimed fossil fuels improve air and water quality.
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