CP: Ottawa's attempts to blame Ontario for fiscal woes isn't winning votes: experts

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Flaherty was clearly "posturing" with his demands that Ontario slash corporate taxes, right up until the day before the budget came down, said McMaster University political science professor Henry Jacek.

The real aim was for Ottawa to be able to blame the province if the economy goes into a tailspin and the minority Conservative government faces an election, Jacek said.

"Flaherty's very clear communications strategy is to try and lift that blame off of the federal government and try to take (voters') minds off what he didn't do for Ontario in the federal budget," Jacek said.

"He wants to essentially avoid any blame for any problems that occur in Ontario in terms of public services or economic recession, and I think basically that's what it's all about, this blame avoidance."

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http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5hohFUDopSQJC40or0sEbcSJ0JHDg

I guess Harper figures he can pick up a few more Alberta seats to secure a majority.

The only two Liberal seats went down in the last election, the faux cons already hold all 28 seats here so he can't improve his election numbers here. His government's deliberate,imo, antagonizing of Ontario only makes sense to me IF he would prefer to be the Loyal Opposition during the economic downturn we all know is starting and will worsen as the US continues to go further into the recession that is already in place there.

If the faux cons are in an opposition position against a Liberal minority government, they will try and put all the blame on them while touting how good things were when they were in power.