A mean and nasty budget

By Stuart Hertzog
February 4th, 2009

Supporting it puts the Liberals in bed with the Blue Meanies

The Leader of the Bue Meanies

The Hand of the Blue Meanies lies behind the ‘stimulus’ budget

Ottawa — Despite his protestation that he was putting the Harper government ‘on probation,’ this week Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff ordered his minions — I’m sorry, I meant his MPs — to vote in favour of finance minister Jim Flaherty’s questionable ‘stimulus’ budget.

Ignatieff graciously allowed his six Newfoundland Liberal MPs to vote against the budget, which will force a reduction in that province’s federal transfer payments by between one billion and $1.6 billion over the next three years, a cut vehemently opposed by premier Danny Williams.

Ignatieff’s support for the budget was to all appearances based on short-term political expediency. Canada’s corporate media hailed his move as politically mature. Really, it gives him time to rebuild his tottering party.

This vote puts the Liberals firmly in bed with Canada’s very own Blue Meanies, and raises questions as to whether there is any real difference between Ignatieff’s Liberals and Harper’s newly-centralist Conservatives.

Flawed economic strategy

Flaherty’s budget is a very flawed document. Based on questionable predictions of a recovery within two years, even its $40 billion spending largesse that will create a deficit of over $64 billion over the next two years, may not provide the stimulus the Canadian economy will need.

The proviso that infrastructure project funding must be P3s and that their financing must be shared equally with provinces and cities will throw an additional burdenon cash-strapped Canadian governments even as transfer payments are being cut back.
Using tax reductions as a strategy to mitigate the economic slump has been questioned by even mainstream economists.
The one billion dollars of tax reductions bestowed on middle and upper income earners may not even be invested in Canada. It will have no effect on the working poor and will make it more difficult for future generations to manage their national debt.
Failure to improve the the EI system means that many of the growing number of unemployed won’t get needed assistance.
$3 billion dollars of non-refundable tax credits up to $1,375 per family if more than $10,000 is spent on home renovation will do nothing for those who cannot afford it or do not own a home.
The budget also gives short shrift to women, the environment, and even to academic freedom.

Shared belief in a financial élite

Behind the rhetoric of opposition, the Liberal party’s complicity with Stephen Harper’s Conservatives points to the fact that that both share a common belief in the superiority of Canada’s financial élite and its right to allocate to itself an ever-growing slice of Canada’s economic pie.

The main difference between their parties is that they represent two geographically-distinct and competing power bases: Calgary and the New West versus Toronto and Canada’s dominant Eastern establishment.

Harper’s new Conservatives have in addition a pathological streak of neo-conservative religiosity that offends traditional Tories. And Liberals have always managed to cloak their superiority with a mantle of concern — not that that ever mattered where large sums of money were involved.

So don’t be impressed by the protestations of Count Ignatieff, or the apparent conversion of a neo-conservative government to the merits of Keynsian economics. It’s all an act to confuse the hoi polloi.

The iron Hand of the Blue Meanies hides behind this ‘stimulus’ budget, and that’s just fine with Michael Ignatieff’s Liberal party and caucus.

Only a progressive, coalition government will tame the excesses of Canada’s two élitist political parties. Nothing less will do.