EDITORIAL: Vote wisely in this historic election

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The long-awaited federal election that begins Sunday gives Canadians a choice between two political parties promising the same things, given that Mark Carney and the Liberals are actually running on the ideas and promises of Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives. 

While the Liberals have a reputation for stealing the policies of other parties during elections — and then ignoring them post-election if they win — this time the actual Liberal record of their past 10 years in power should be put on milk cartons because it’s been missing ever since Carney entered the Liberal leadership race. 

Suddenly, the Mark Carney Liberals claim that almost everything they believed in when they were Justin Trudeau Liberals was fiscally irresponsible, such as big government, big deficits, big debt, consumer carbon taxes, increasing taxes on capital gains and runaway immigration levels. 

Those ideas, which the Liberals now claim they’ve abandoned in one of the most shameless conversions on the road to Damascus ever attempted in Canadian politics, resulted in the Liberals, after a decade in power, having the worst record of economic growth of any Canadian government since R.B. Bennett during the Great Depression.

Now, at the eleventh hour, after 10 years of doing the opposite, the Liberals are taking credit for reversing their own economically damaging policies.  

Despite the fact they can’t run on their own record — which is why they’re stealing the Conservatives’ platform — the Carney Liberals claim they’re the best party to lead Canadians in the fight against the irrational tariff war U.S. President Donald Trump launched against Canada. 

What they haven’t explained is why they are best equipped for that task, given that their anti-growth, anti-energy policies have resulted in Canada today being almost 50% behind the U.S. on the key measurement of a nation’s prosperity — real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. 

This election, given the new economic world order Trump is seeking to impose not just on Canada, but globally, is in a real sense historically important. 

It’s vital we elect a government that means what it says and does what it says it will do on the key issue of pursuing responsible policies to grow our economy so we can take on the many domestic and international challenges facing us today. 

Choose wisely, Canada.