The other Mayday is a distress call. It comes from the French "m'aidez," or help me. When repeated three times on a radio frequency, Mayday signifies grave and imminent danger. If such a call had gone out May 2, 2011 -- the night of the election of a majority Harper government -- a significant number of Canadians would not have thought it a hoax.

31%
That's how much of Canada's economy is made up of income, sales, corporate, property and other taxes we pay to all levels of government. (Source)

~$38 billion
That's how much less Canadians now pay in individual income tax compared to 2000. (Source)

Finally, it's crystal clear. When it comes to public spending, it's the public, not the spending, the Harper government is really out to control.

The budget that came down last week was a defining moment, though not the way anyone expected. Naturally, Conservative Canada widely assumed the new majority would be all about government austerity. That was a misconception.

There will be government jobs shed, of course, but the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and its ilk were quite disappointed, which was the best thing about this otherwise truly disturbing budget. Economists internationally are in near-consensus that drastically cutting government spending is the fast way to halt economic growth.

Ideology makes you stupid and if someone gives you power it makes you dangerous. That makes Jim Flaherty, Canada's finance minister, one of the most dangerous people in Canada as he prepares to deliver one of the most draconian and irrational budgets in recent years.

Finance ministers have a huge amount of leeway in deciding what economic or fiscal issues they are going to devote the most time to in a budget. They can focus on economic growth per se, or employment, or productivity or shifting the macro-focus of the economy to anticipate future developments, or decide to build a modern infrastructure to enhance the country's competitiveness -- or any combination of the above.