How is cutting waste less positive? They're conservatives. They get bonus points for cutting things. Now, if they passed tax increases, then you've got a point.
The two aren't too similar, but I wouldn't want anyone cutting into me who wasn't a surgeon.
Now with politics, we often have people who claim to cut waste, but are perceived as cutting necessary programs.
You may view the CBC and Healthcare as waste; the vast majority of Canadians do not. Harper wants more than anything to convince Canadians that the Conservatives are trustworthy. The last thing he wants is for Canadians to be sick of them by the time the next election rolls around, especially if the Liberals manage to find a halfway competent leader.
That's why Harper's been as centrist as he has, and that's why cuts to popular programs are being delivered alongside this news. He'll stay true to conservative values, but only insofar as they don't hurt his re-election chances.
Not everything has to be a conspiracy theory.
Cutting spending is a positive among all Canadians. The Liberals had their most populous years when they were responsible for -- and still deserve credit for -- brutal spending cuts (health care transfers, services, etc) that balanced the budget.
While HN isn't the place for discussions like this, it really is hard to rationalize some claims against conservatives with reality. The Conservatives are currently running the largest budgets in Canadian history. They increased transfers to the provinces more than any other government (some would say naively and rashly, making promises that health care spending, for instance, could just increase exponentially forever). They cut the military budget.
But if you read what you just wrote you would think that they were a slash and burn government. Hardly.
It's also worth noting that Harper has the most liberal reign to do what he wants right now, given that he doesn't have to face an election for another four years and memories are infamously short in Canada. He doesn't need to pander to the masses right now, at all, and the same-old "trying to hide the hidden agenda" bits grow enormously tiresome, bringing the sort of ignorance, baseless partisan noise into the discussion that we see too often South of the border.
If this seem familiar, last time around it was changing the words to O Canada (http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/music/story/2010/03/03/o-canada-...).
The reason this topic generates chatter is because its simple to understand. My teenage sister gets it, my 7 y/o gets it, the homeless person at Union understands and the Bay St exec gets it. Its not obviously complicated. It takes $0.16 to make a penny. Its eradication will save millions in Gov't spending. "It costs 1.6 Canadian cents to produce each one cent coin and stamping out the penny will save around C$11 million ($11 million) a year." (1)
The other proposed budget topics aren't so easily understood by the general public. Old Age Security? Greater than 40% of Canadians are <30 years old (2). This isn't likely to be the prevailing conversation topic. CBC? Canadian Crown Corporation? Really? Who knew? Who cares? Who understands the impact?
I don't think mass media has conspired to fool the common man (in this case anyway). Its just a simple conversation topic.
Edit: There really isn't any complication since only cash payments are effected (3)
(1) http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/30/canada-penny-federal...
(2) http://www40.statcan.gc.ca/l01/cst01/demo10a-eng.htm
(3) http://www.budget.gc.ca/2012/themes/theme2-info-eng.html
