AYLMER, QUEBEC | Our country is not the only nation with a self-proclaimed "new" government. France also elected a conservative leader, who labeled himself "new" although his program also stretched back to ideas popular before the last century.

It is interesting to compare the government France is getting under President Nicolas Sarkozy with what we are getting with our government, still "new" two years after its election.

For example, Sarkozy has worked to reshape the European Union along much simpler, more transparent lines, while we have had the curtain lifted slightly on the SPP union of the US, Canada, and Mexico; a glimpse under the curtain in Montebello last summer wasn't pretty.

Sarkozy has manoeuvred through national public service and transportation strikes launched by massive unions which had vowed to bring his anti-union government down.

Just prior to the international conference on climate change in Bali, Sarkozy announced a green program which will revolutionize France, from its farming to its nuclear industry. This program supports the UN/EU plan for a 300 percent increase in organically farmed land, revamping energy efficiency of buildings across the country, a stop to road-building, and increased support for mass transit.

This conservative president went further to announce a moratorium on nuclear plants, apart from upgrades. This shocked our nuclear industry which has been promoting nuclear power by pointing to France's near complete dependence on nuclear for its electricity.

Sarkozy's new government also created a new method of evaluating the effect on climate and on biodiversity for every major public project. This brings community organizations and unions into the process, as well as public servants and business leaders.

Sarkozy introduced a new approach to taxation - taxing pollution more than taxing wages which is a form of carbon tax - plus a pledge to reduce taxes elsewhere, whenever a new taxes is created.

It's hard to tally the benefits from our "new" government, compared to France's. What did we get, a one cent cut in the GST and an immense amount of international ill will from supporting the US's sabotage attempts at the Bali conference?

Our "new" government seems to have made its top priority to hammer the groups that do not share its neo-conservative ideology: women's and native groups, in particular, and the socially active groups which use court challenges to get the government to live up to its promises.

Our government seems fierce only in defending the interests of Big Oil hard at work in the oil sands, creating Canada's largest environmental disaster ever.

So why is Canada getting so much less from its new government, while "un-governable" France is reaping so much and setting itself up for the economy of the future?

Is it because France has much more to lose if it doesn't keep up? All that Harper has asked for is a vague "seat at the table" thanks to his arms spending.

France needs much more -- it has home-based corporate empires to defend, a wide sphere of political interest, and a challenge to its position within Europe with the arrival of so many new EU members.

Canada, under the neo-conservative plan, is de-industrializing and retreating to becoming a supplier of resources, attaching itself as firmly as possible to the American economy. Our rural population is flocking to the cities like a third world country.

Or is this the difference between old fashioned conservatism, at work in France, and American neo-conservatism, shoving Canada into line for the coming "American Century?"

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Copyright © 2008 Fred Ryan/Log Cabin Chronicles/03.08