You know how horribly the Conservatives have mismanaged Canada’s finances and the economy when they start claiming they reduced Canada’s deficit by $37 billion when the federal debt was $482 billion when the Conservatives became the government of Canada and has risen to $612 billion during the period Harper and the Conservatives have been the government of Canada.

The facetiousness of the claim highlights not just how untrue the Conservatives claim of good financial management is, but shines a spotlight on the truth – the Conservatives are not simply poor financial managers, they are – as testified to by their record – terrible managers of Canada’s finances and economy.

When the Conservatives took office, they were handed a budget and finances solidly in the black, a financial situation that had reduced Canada’s national debt as a result of nine consecutive surplus budgets.

Instead of our current $612 billion the Canadian federal debt should now have been around $200 million – and headed for $ 0.

Stephen Harper and the Conservatives came into office with federal finances in a state where looking like good managers of Canada’s finances and economy should have been easy ……. unless you were terrible managers of Canada’s finances and economy.

Given the state Canada’s finances and economy have come to under the management of Stephen Harper and the Conservatives terrible is not too a harsh a word to apply to their demonstrated incompetence.

Rather than overly harsh, I am not sure that terrible or incompetent evokes the damage, costs and consequences of what Stephen Harper and the Conservatives have done to Canada’s finances and economy.

Under the management of Stephen Harper and the Conservatives the things that are going up – poverty, homelessness, etc – are not the things you want going up; while the things going down – wages, jobs you can earn a frugal living from, housing affordability, standard of living – are not the things you want going down.

We don’t live in the world of reality, we live in the world of how we perceive reality.Bryan Singer

Given the ideology that Stephen Harper views the world through and the deviations from that ideology that grow out of his overriding drive to remain in power as Canada’s government

[examined in Part IV] the differences between  reality as perceived by Stephen Harper and the reality of what actually is –  is extremely wide.

The gap between what Stephen Harper and the Conservatives perceive and what the actual facts that compose reality are, gives rise to the discrepancy of Harper and the Conservatives believing their own rhetoric about the wonderful job they are doing and the dangerous shape their actions have driven Canada’s finances and economy into.

Dangerous because the difference between the actual state of Canada’s finances and economy and the state perceived by Harper and the Conservatives means that the actions necessary to redirect Canada’s finances and economy onto a solid footing will not occur because Harper and the Conservatives and their supporters all reinforce each others perceptions.

It is as if Harper, the conservatives and their supporters are standing on a set of railway tracks assuring each other that the light is not the light of a train bearing down on them, nor is that sound the sound of a horn warning them to get off the tracks and out of the path of a train.

Adding to the wide gap between reality and perception are Harper and the Conservatives refusal to accept [disbelief and denial] any facts that do not agree with [or that call into question] their perceptions; their refusal to accept responsibility [a trait shared with many of the voters] to address issues such as a national housing strategy or for any unwelcome consequences of their actions they cannot deny; their practice and mastery of excuse spinning.

All of which serve to reinforce the gap that exists between perception and reality.

It is also why you know that, since the deficit is prima facie evidence of the terrible job Harper and the Conservatives have done managing Canada’s finances and economy, there will be an excuse or excuses about why they are not responsible for the deficits.

It is why you know that whatever the excuse du jour is– terrorists, the questions of the opposition, recession, UFOs, their stars – it will sound good ……. until you examine the facts.