CEO's not buying Harper cabinet.

I find this poll a bit surprising. Except for the trusts taxation turnabout I thought that the Harper government was in general pro-business. Perhaps it is simply that governments are never pro-business enough for business leaders! I wonder what it is they expect from the Conservatives that would make them so much different from the Liberals. Both are pro-business in general as far as I can see. In a democracy you can't expect government to simply ignore other interests all the time! In fact you can't expect that in any government.
Hmm. A strange headline. Is the Harper cabinet for sale to business?



CEOs not buying Harper cabinet
Business leaders weary of 'new' government in Financial Post-BDO Dunwoody poll

David Pett
Financial Post


Sunday, August 12, 2007


The honeymoon is over for Stephen Harper's Cabinet, according to Canadian business leaders who believe the current government has done little to differentiate itself from its Liberal predecessor.

That's the conclusion of a Web-based COMPAS poll conducted in conjunction with BDO Dunwoody LLP for the Financial Post, which asked a panel of CEOs and business leaders to assess the Prime Minister and key ministers in Cabinet. The poll was conducted after media speculation about a Cabinet shuffle, expected as early as Monday.

In their assessment of key ministers governing the country, the panelists spared no one, as performance scores for every minister fell since the last, similar poll in February, 2006. That includes the Prime Minister, who saw his score drop from 74 to 66 on a 100-point school report-type scale. Mr. Harper still continues to outperform his ministers, however, and his performance score also remains higher than previous Liberal prime ministers Paul Martin and Jean Chrtien, who rarely scored higher than 55.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's score dropped 17 points to 64. That's good enough to rank among the highest-performing ministers, alongside Peter McKay, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, who scored 65, and Stockwell Day, Minister of Public Safety, who scored 60.

In October last year, Mr. Flaherty reversed a Conservative election promise not to tinker with government tax policy regarding income trusts, by announcing that income trusts would no longer benefit from "unfavourable tax incentives" come 2011.

The panelists regard taxation as the most important priority affecting their evaluation of the Conservative government. "Tax policy is a joke and undermines the confidence of business in relying on an understanding government, which it is not," one respondent said. "There seems to be too little thinking about repercussions about tax changes and more bowing down to policy wonks. They are not living in the real world."

Also noteworthy is the fall in ratings of Environment Minister John Baird. His score dropped 18 points to 57, following recent environmental announcements on greenhouse gas emissions that one panelist called "unachievable, unfair and the opposite of what the government had promised."

Taken together, the decisions made on tax policy and the environment reflect a general disappointment among respondents, who believe these decisions are symptomatic of a government unwilling to set an agenda that is distinct from Liberal leadership of the past.

"The overall feeling is this is a Liberal government in Conservative clothing," COMPAS founder Conrad Winn said. "That came in pretty loud and clear."

The 118 respondents to the survey conducted from Aug. 8 to 10 were hand-picked, with a higher representation of small and medium-sized firms. The study is considered more accurate than similarly sized public surveys because of the small population of CEOs and business leaders from which the sample was drawn.