Prime Minister Stephen Harper raised the "cataclysmic" spectre of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the Financial Stability Board cancelled not one but two scheduled press conferences and the Dick Fuld/Vampire Squid/Go-for-the-jugular schools of hypocritical finance and unrepentant greed hid behind their taxpayer-funded life support systems last weekend. The legitimate concerns of civil society groups were also, once again, sidelined by a cynical, adversarial, provocative and non-inclusive process.

As the storm gathers in the Gulf of Mexico and the washing machine effect begins to swell, we are still at least 30 to 45 days from a relief well being functional to cover the gaping hole left by the explosion of BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig. Paradoxically, austere confidence appears to be on the political leaders' menus this Saturday night after the callous optics of lakeside diplomacy.

British Prime Minister David Cameron was the only leader of the G8 courageous enough to actually go for a Deerhurst dunk in the lake, while maternal health took a beating in the name of counter terrorism budgetary profligacy. In Toronto, black clad would-be fence climbers are mingling with torched police cars on Bay Street and the tourism industry shakes it's head in dismay.

The 2010 federal budget stuck predictably to the Conservative dogma that there is no need for a fundamental change of course. One we get past the temporary hiccup of global and national recession, we must return to a world of ever-smaller government to be achieved through continued tax reductions and deep spending cuts.

Despite the fact that unemployment is and will remain very high -- forecast in the budget itself to average 8.5 per cent this year and 7.9 per cent next year -- temporary extensions of EI benefits will expire in September of this year and some 500,000 unemployment claims filed during the Great Recession will be exhausted before claimants can find a new job.