I have expressed some frustration on these pages about the CFIB in the past but I have also praised the organization for doing such a good job of embedding the small business agenda within government (they aren’t the only voice in that game but a strong one).
Why they want to agitate the government of Nova Scotia to the point the Finance Minister is calling for the leadership’s removal doesn’t sound like typical CFIB style. Has the CFIB leadership gone rogue or is this just the Minister getting all worked up over nothing?
The CFIB is very well researched – they have economists in every region and they poll their membership hourly (it seems). Not sure if I have ever seen them engage in such a direct fight with a provincial government in the past.
“The CFIB is very well researched – they have economists in every region and they poll their membership hourly (it seems).”
I have to ask: what is your working definition of an economist? In any event, the problem with CFIB is not with their ‘economists’, but with their cooked polls of members. No reputable polling org would get away with the leading questions they pose to members. And, generally, the use of the term ‘members’ implies a right to elect the leadership; that’s lacking in the CFIB.
I think it can be explained in the same fashion that when I used to sit in on a few parliamentary committee meetings as a staffer, the exchanges between the Canadian Alliance and the NDP were so heated that the chair of the meeting, a Liberal, had to remind them to get back to business in that it was their job as opposition MPs to question the government on policy not to engage in pointless ideological barbs. In other words, it was apparent they had deep ideological differences that mostly seemed to irk the dippers. It was entertaining and comical to say the least. Much like Graham Steele who is obviously feeling the pinch after the hike.
Once an NDP go0vernment is elected, a lot of formerly rational organizations tend to lose it. It’s a bit like the Birther or Tea Party movement in the U.S. It’s totally politically motivated, and has nothing to do with actual policy.
If you’ve never seen it, try to find an old copy of ‘A Very British Coup’ dramatizing the same phenomenon against Labour in Britain. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Very_British_Coup
The NDP simply do not care about business affairs, so of course Steele is going want to alienate them. The party is all social and economic does not even show up in their recent budget.