The Conservative party has redesigned its website and added a section on the history of “Canada’s Founding Party.” In addition to claiming Confederation (achieved when the province of Canada was governed by the Great Coalition) and women’s suffrage as “conservative achievements,” the official party story generally covers more recent events, such as the following.
On January 23rd, 2006, Canadians voted for change. Two weeks later, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his cabinet were sworn in to lead the new Government of Canada. When the global economic recession threatened, the Harper Government took timely and prudent action to ensure Canada remained on track for long-term stability. And when faced with another general election in October 2008, Canadians trusted a Conservative Government to continue leading Canada on a path for economic success.
The sequencing of these last two sentences is interesting because it was actually during the September and October 2008 campaign that Mr. Harper said it was his belief that “if we were going to have some sort of big crash or recession, we probably would have had it by now” and that “the only way there is going to be a recession” is if the Liberal party were elected to form government.