As the federal Integrity Commissioner did in a recent report, and as many good government watchdogs have done in the past, the Auditor General kept secret the names of wrongdoers in his report on the fighter jet purchase multi-billion dollar boondoggle.

The public has a right to know the identity of its employees -- politicians, political staff, appointees or public servants -- who break the rules, and so all the good government watchdog agencies must be required by law to identify exactly which person broke which rule in each situation.

In contrast to this year's Alternative Federal Budget 2012, the federal budget is decidedly not a budget for the rest of us.

In fact, regular Canadians won't see themselves at all in this budget.

Instead, the country will be dragged into austerity, not only now but in the future. And none of it is necessary.

The deficit balance date has moved forward one year purely due to economic growth, and with just slightly better growth, it will be two years. The federal cuts weren't $4 billion or $8 billion, but more than $5 billion -- for this round anyway.

The crowning irony of Premier Dalton McGuinty's ninth budget is that it completes the job of cutting government down to size started by the Mike Harris Conservatives in the 1990s.

You won't find the direct attacks on public services and the people who deliver them that featured so prominently in the Harris budgets, but the result is the same.

This budget virtually abandons the provincial commitment to reduce child poverty by 25 per cent in 2013 -- the budget speech doesn't even bother to talk about the poor other than to say social assistance rates will be frozen. Combine that with a slowdown in planned Ontario Child Benefit increases and there is no way this government can meet its promised target. It doesn't even address it in this budget.

On March 20, Québec's Finance Minister, Raymond Bachand, tabled his third budget. This budget year follows in the wake of those of the last few years. The government is still insisting on transforming public service funding in accordance with the user-fee revolution logic (so dear to Mr. Bachand's heart), developing the Plan Nord, and reforming the pension plan.

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