>>Why does everyone blame the liberals for standing in the way of minimalist government? Seems to me that both the left and the right are guilty of spending tons of taxpayers money on pure nonsense.
Mulroney did sort of sour things for the conservatives. He talked a good line but he spent like deficit financing was his own personal invention (although in fairness we were paying over 40B/year in interest on the national debt at the time). If you leave him out of the equation though, the Liberals have tended to be much more enthusiastic about the tax and spend model, both at a federal and provincial level.
I must admit, one could easily draw the conclusion that the Liberals shovel money we don't need to spend into government organizations, while the Conservatives shovel money we don't need to spend into private sector organizations. Canada has not been a happy place for voters for a long time.
Before Pearson, had I been of voting age I probably would have voted Liberal. At the time I think the parties were less polarized, although the curse of a three party system is that no party can afford to go more than a few tiny steps from the center or they won't get elected.
I have stopped blaming the politicians (except for the latest crop of Liberals, of course
) but blaming an ignorant and short-sighted electorate for the government we get tends to make one unpopular.
