Finance Minister Jim Flaherty says the federal deficit will soar to a record $50 billion-plus this fiscal year.
That's over $16 billion more than he forecast in January's federal budget.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/640673
Oops. 
I guess this means we don't have to listen to anything Conservatives have to say about deficits again since they must not have meant it the first time.
Does this also mean NDP politicians can stop promising "balanced budgets" for fear that they won't be taken seriously as managers of the economy? Too much to hope for, I guess.
Oh come on. Only the NDP can bash unions, and only the Tories can bloat the government. It's a time honoured tradition of political hypocrisy! Nixon to China and Mulroney to Schreiber...
Does this also mean NDP politicians can stop promising "balanced budgets" for fear that they won't be taken seriously as managers of the economy? Too much to hope for, I guess.
No it just means the Tories were completely full of shit last October when the said everything was peachy with the economy and our big six banking monopoly in Canada.
And that other party of fiscal Frankenteins have no idea what to do either, other than that they will likely put jackboots to the economy and obssess themselves with paying down Tory national debt whenever they slither back into federal power in Ottawa.
Both the old line parties have large portraits of Bob Rae hanging over the entrances of their party headquarters. It's a Bob Rae-off with our elected stooges now.
Both the old line parties have large portraits of Bob Rae hanging over the entrances of their party headquarters. It's a Bob Rae-off with our elected stooges now.
It's quite enough that he's my MP, thanks.
There's one aspect to this that hasn't been mentioned yet, which is that a return to growth and end of stimulus spending may not be enough to close this deficit - leaving a tax increase or spending cut bomb for the next government.
Extra points if the Cons are forced to raise the GST back to 7%
Both the old line parties have large portraits of Bob Rae hanging over the entrances of their party headquarters. It's a Bob Rae-off with our elected stooges now.
It's quite enough that he's my MP, thanks.
There's one aspect to this that hasn't been mentioned yet, which is that a return to growth and end of stimulus spending may not be enough to close this deficit - leaving a tax increase or spending cut bomb for the next government.
The Chretien-Martin Liberals took every opportunity to mention a similar situation in the 1990s. So they put the kibosh to our economy with tight money policy and shovelled billions of dollars in debt service payments to the banksters.
Economist Pierre Fortin and Industry Canada said that in a comparison of 35 or 40 of the world's top industrialized economies' aggregate economic performances, Canada's economy performed "about the worst" in the decade of the 90's.
Both the old line parties have large portraits of Bob Rae hanging over the entrances of their party headquarters. It's a Bob Rae-off with our elected stooges now.
It's quite enough that he's my MP, thanks.
There's one aspect to this that hasn't been mentioned yet, which is that a return to growth and end of stimulus spending may not be enough to close this deficit - leaving a tax increase or spending cut bomb for the next government.
The Chretien-Martin Liberals took every opportunity to mention a similar situation in the 1990s. So they put the kibosh to our economy with tight money policy and shovelled billions of dollars in debt service payments to the banksters.
Economist Pierre Fortin and Industry Canada said that in a comparison of 35 or 40 of the world's top industrialized economies' aggregate economic performances, Canada's economy performed "about the worst" in the decade of the 90's.
Repost from another thread:
Holy #$%^!
I think I just wet myself. What happened to the thread from the old babble where all the predictions on the deficit the Tories would saddle Canadians with were made? I want to see how well I did- I believe I undershot massively, but who could see this recession coming or the Tories useless "stimulus" package. I hate to say this but...give me Obama...at least the American people got some value out of his deficit spending!
I guess now might be time for a whole new set of predictions threads: 1) How are the Tories going to pull themselves out of this mess? 2) How likely is the next election to be run on economic competence, competence of any kind? 3) How likely is it that the federal NDP is going to get crushed when it comes out that they don't understand the macroeconomic issues at all and have no new ideas or federal track record to run on?
My predictions: 1) They won't, although if they try the only thing the Tories can do is raise taxes and flee wildly from Afghanistan. 2) If it's called within the next 12 months: extremely likely. If it's called within the next 18 months: moderately likely. 3) The NDP will lose its soft flank (read 5 percentage point support drop) and several seats unless it manages to either completely shift the focus of the campaign through successful negative campaigning or learn enough about macroeconomics to actually sound competent and generate some new and thoughtful ideas.
Will there be election this summer? I think Ignatieff is licking his chops and waiting for a public reaction. If the backlash is strong enough, the Liberals will ride it to a mid-summer poll date if that's what's necessary. Ignatieff is eager to not give the Conservatives any more time to batter his image with negative attack ads. Ignatieff also wants to lead the LPC into an election at the height of crisis. This moment looks promising.
The only way out of this is higher taxes. The question is when? and how high?
Conservatives are the only party we can trust with our money.
Conservatives are fiscally responsible.
Conservatives don't like big government.
Conservatives know that low taxes and high compensation encourage the best and brightest entrepaneurs to be creative and innovative
Conservatives understand that when the well off don't face discriminatory socialisti tax punishments, the whole society benefits.
Conservatives know that a market freed of the shackles of big government and onerous taxes leads to more competition, which in turn leads to more efficiency, better service and products, and lower prices for consumers.
Anyone who says otherwise obviously lacks common sense.
I started a thread on this 2 days ago in the cons trying to get a majority thread. Anyway what we should be worried about is they now have all the reason to CUT CUT CUT and SELL SELL SELL. Good bye healthcare, education, and welfare. Hello private canada pension and leasing our own buildings again.
Deja Vu for us in Ontario. This is exactly what flaherty did before the tories got the boot. I think they would have been happy with the coalition wearing this. Things didn't quite pan out. I would like to see how they will frame this as the mistake of the oppositions.
[url=http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/05/26/harper-ei052609.html] Growing EI numbers show Tories' changes helping jobless: PM. Oh Really?[/url]
The prime minister told the House the economic picture is better for Canada than most governments around the world that have been forced to run deficits.
The current global economic recession has led the government to spend more this year on the EI system, including an extra five weeks of benefits for recipients in the January budget supported by the Liberals, Harper said.
He noted the number of EI beneficiaries rose faster than the numbers of unemployed in March.
“This means that the vast majority of the unemployed are receiving EI benefits,” Harper said.
And the band played on.
Okay I am ready to be tarred and feather - what would the deficit be if the coalition had formed a government earlier this year and would there estimate back in January still be valid now or would they have raised the amount of the deficit.
I expect Harper crew to turn this into an opportunity. When lemons is what you got, make lemonade.
In the first place- when to raise taxes? Not on Haper's watch. Fiddle while Rome burns. A nice present for the succeeding government. Tying the hands of future governments even better than they though they could.
And as the timing of announcing its really $50 billion...
Think Paul Martin low-balling surpluses, in reverse.
They were going to have to come clean on this eventually anyway. What better time than with all the ramping up around the EI debate.
"Here Iggy. Still want to push that 360 hour qualification?"
I think its quite possible they decided to make the best of the bad news: go ahead and give the worst possible deficit outcome now. There isn't going to be an election now [trump in reserve: deal with Bloc if necessary], so go ahead and take your lumps... and reap the silver lining of throwing some tacks in front of Iggys pompous blustering.
Conservatives are fiscally responsible.
According to [url=http://www.fin.gc.ca/pub/frt-trf/index-eng.asp]federal government reports[/url], NDP governments have the best fiscal track record among all parties, balancing the books more than twice as often than Liberal governments.
[url=http://archive.ndp.ca/page/1627][color=orange][b]New Democrats most fiscally responsible:[/b] Federal government report[/color][/url]
* The report shows that NDP governments have balanced the books 46 per cent of the time..* Liberal governments have posted year-over-year budget deficits an astonishing 79 percent of the time.
* Conservative governments have only a slightly better record than the Liberals, logging deficits 65 per cent of the years in which they've been in power
Okay I am ready to be tarred and feather - what would the deficit be if the coalition had formed a government earlier this year and would there estimate back in January still be valid now or would they have raised the amount of the deficit.
It would have been just as bad or worse - and the Conservatives would be howling.
The conservatives must be delighted. they are not being blamed for the deficit and they will bring out the axe next year with the argument that the things they cut will not be affordable.
Devil's advocacy point #1) Harper wouldn't even be hurt by this announcement if he didn't so outragously claim that his government wouldn't be running deficits. What can the opposition say? "Under Harper our deficit has spiralled out of control. Now raise EI benefits, or we'll force an election."The Canadian public isn't stupid.
Devil's advocacy point #2) A $50billion deficit is really only of moderate size - 3% of the economy. Justifyable under Canada's deficits (relative to the size of the economy) were considerably larger under Mulroney (and Trudeau?). The current American deficit takes up a whopping 12% of its economy.
And the Cons have the money to spin it both ways-- now to save their hides and later to justify cuts. That's why this works fine for them.
The emphasis is on "works fine". Doesn't mean they planned it this way, which they didn't.
But it does mean that despite the adverse circumstances, they are still going to reap the rewards of methodically pushing their agenda, and the Liberals giving them a pass.
Even though they could never have predicted this a year ago, and [reasonably] predicted very different... this is what their relentless pursuit gets them. Pushing has its rewards- even when it does not realize what in particular is being pushed at the moment.
Which is not to say that it always works for them. They are paying, and will continue to pay, for foolishly overplaying their hand last Fall. And odds are still greatest they cannot indefinitely escape being fataly bit by the recession. But despite those very big caveats... they get it to go there way even when people think 'now they're going to get it'.
sorry double post
Never forget that these people are nothing if not opportunists-- they spin everything, look for every angle and run perpetual political campaigns.
Will there be election this summer? I think Ignatieff is licking his chops and waiting for a public reaction. If the backlash is strong enough, the Liberals will ride it to a mid-summer poll date if that's what's necessary. Ignatieff is eager to not give the Conservatives any more time to batter his image with negative attack ads. Ignatieff also wants to lead the LPC into an election at the height of crisis. This moment looks promising.
Funny, no mention of the NDP or the BQ, both of whom need to lend their support to Iggy if he wants to force an election. I doubt the NDP or the BQ would do so if it looks like a Liberal majority is in the cards.
"I doubt the NDP or the BQ would do so if it looks like a Liberal majority is in the cards."
Which is exactly what Iggy wants - he will then be able to accuse the NDP and/or BLoc of supporting the Cons and basically making the NDP argument that the Libs are propping up the Cons a little less sellable.
"Which is exactly what Iggy wants - he will then be able to accuse the NDP and/or BLoc of supporting the Cons and basically making the NDP argument that the Libs are propping up the Cons a little less sellable."
After the Liberals propping up the Cons on 71 consecutive confidence votes? Would Iggy have that much gall????
Devil's advocacy point #1) Harper wouldn't even be hurt by this announcement if he didn't so outragously claim that his government wouldn't be running deficits. What can the opposition say? "Under Harper our deficit has spiralled out of control. Now raise EI benefits, or we'll force an election."The Canadian public isn't stupid.
Devil's advocacy point #2) A $50billion deficit is really only of moderate size - 3% of the economy. Justifyable under Canada's deficits (relative to the size of the economy) were considerably larger under Mulroney (and Trudeau?). The current American deficit takes up a whopping 12% of its economy.
1. That is the only reason they are trotting it out. They are trying to save their skins until the economy isn't in bad of shape. Hell last week they said things looked good because the market(TSX the con barometer of the country's health) was up above some voodoo number to represent a good economy, all the while lay-off notices continue to roll in.
2. This is all fine and good but Canada was running surpluses(on the back of the poor)just 2 years ago in the 14 billion range when a lot of other economies had been tanking already. This was partly oil induced.
Strange how the media says it's OK to have the deficit be a ratio of GDP but when we said we could naturally outgrow our debt in this same manner they poo pood it. "We need to pay down the debt as fast as possible" You want to know what is truely scary. We are servicing the debt to the tune of 0.25%(BOC rate) while in the 90's it was around 7-10% So what happens if compound interest begins to rise agaist our debt...you know say inflation starts(from the stimulus money) and they need to reign it in. We will be seeing regular 75 Billion debt repayment interest fees again. Which is where most of the debt actually comes from, not from imbalanced budgets.
The cons turned a 14 Billion surplus into a 50 Billion and counting deficit without the huge interest fees when we had to fight it last time. Not counting how they are selling assets to cover part of the mess(Spectrum sale). It's the same as how flaherty ran deficits in ontario during an economic boom EVEN while selling 407 and government owned buildings and properties. They are not called on their BS. If people were given a full accounting on what the real deficit looks like we would all be shocked. Hey want to save some money(billions in fact) leave afghanistan. The majority of canadians want it to happen anyway.
Not so simple. And they all have completely seperate dynamics. The NDP cannot afford politically to give Harper a pass. Period.
The Bloc can easily do so, and will just calculate what is to its best advantage. So they are ripe for a deal, even if the Liberals have only a so-so chance in an election in Quebec and nationaly.
This is why it would appear to me VERY strong odds that there will not be an election. God only knows what the Liberals will do and/or pretend to do. That in itself only might- even if they weren't dependednt on the other opposition parties lead to an election. The still financially strapped Liberals, without a commanding poll lead and far more poorly organized on the ground, are going to be willing to wear responsibility for an election nobody wants to... and in the middle of July to boot?
Like I said- how likely is that even if they didn't need the NDP and BQ?
And if an election is possible, Harper will have a deal with the Bloc.
55 Billion is alot of money .... How much interest are we paying on this 55 Billion? Compounded Interest? And, who exactly are we paying the interest to? Does the guy who gets the interest live in Canada? Is all the interest we pay being sent out of the country?
And .... Ford has yet to demand the same cutbacks as what Chrysler and General Motors just got or Ford will never be able to compete.
Japanese car companies will then devalue their currency and the workers at Ford, Chrysler and General Motors will all be accused of being too greedy .... again.
Make no mistake .... the foreign auto companies are all going to devalue their currency in order to remain competitive and after all these bankruptcies .... nothing will have fundamentally changed.
This is just the beginning .... Next thing is a funding cut to government financed pension schemes. Social Security.
I think that the financial situation is so horrific, that the establishment will feel the need to have a majority government in place and fabricate an election .... where the two major parties play Musical Chairs .... An illusion of a functioning democracy.
The financial system used to have producers and sellers .... then after Free Trade we all became consumers and sellers.
The big hole in the economic system is that there are no more "Producers" and too many "Consumers".
Calm
Martial Law Will be introduced because ....
This time next year, both Britain and the U.S. will have unemployment numbers at about 15 percent at a minimum. It's a "Given" that the Capitalist System has always tossed 15 percent of any population onto the heaps of history. That about 15 perent of the population has always been "Discarded" or "Unnecessary". But anything above 15% .... the Security of the State begins to be challenged. For every perentage point the unemployment rate increases .... it means another "Gang" .... another "Group" of Hopeless Young People who are unhappy.
During the depression of the 30's, there was an umemployment rate of 30 percent.
However; what must be considered is the unemployment rates of cities.
That this is the worst since the 1940's when it comes to a young person (between 16 and 24) being able to find a job .... and a majority of this unemployment is found in cities.
It is going to take alot of "Green Shoots" of economic growth in order to change the employment prospects for alot of young people.
Right now .... at this very moment in time, huge parts of Los Angeles (and other cities) is near anarchy.
http://tinyurl.com/pxj4rp
There are 73 million children in the United States.
-- 39%-28.4 million-live in low-income families
27.4% 0-19 years of age (2007)
Male: 42,667,761
Female: 40,328,895)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States
During the past year, there have been several instances where workers have taken over factories .... the very beginning of "civil unrest".
http://tinyurl.com/rd59th
The demographics speak for themselves.
When it comes to the "Security" of the "State" or the "Establishment", the largest threat was probably during the 60's and early 70's .... During the 60's, there was a huge population of unemployed young people and without much prospect for change. Young People today have alot less respect for authority figures then those Hippie Folks had during the 60's.
Today, the total population of young people between the ages of 16 and 24 is not as large as it was during the 60's .... But it is the largest population demographic since the 1960's.
Why would anybody think that the young people of today would act or react any differently than those who experienced the identical situation (unemployed and without much prospects) of the early 1960's?
In the 1960's, and when the "Establishment" was "Totally" Threatened by civil unrest, and by "Marching Hippies" .... the Establishment invented the "Druggie" and began to enact laws which they could use or implement when wanting to control (young people) a certain segment of society. Today, the Establishment has intrduced the term "Terrorist" instead of "Druggie" and they have enacted all the laws necessary to control "Young People". The "Establishment" learned alot of lessons during the 1960's and have learned to "Militarize" the local commnity police stations. In the 1970's they had hotlines where you could call and rat-out a "Suspiciously Drugged Hippie". Anybody with shoulder length hair was targeted for "control" and or "arrest" and investigations. Add to this coincidence, Kennedy had the threat of "Loose Nukes" and Cuba .... just as the media is now feeding us "How Safe Are Pakistan's Nukes? .... and, "Should We Nuke Iran?" ... echoing in the background.
Calm
Speaking for the radical activist youth of the 60s and early 70s that I knew- which was an awful lot of people.... unemployment just wasn't a concern or motivating factor.
Which says nothing about what might happen now- except that it is out as a pareallel historical case for what you want to say.
Anybody with shoulder length hair was targeted for "control" and or "arrest" and investigations.
I had more than my share of the harrasment and jailings, and serious concern about being killed on some cops whim... and lived in some of the most militarized communities of the time... and this is a romanticized (?) exxageration. Not that it belies the general point about potential militarization of communities.. and probably more to the point tha what was done to radical dope craze hippies, theres the unbroken and ever perfected experience in doing it to the communities of persons of colour.
The Canadian/American border crossings need to become militarized because as the North American economy crumbles, there will be alot of Canadians trying to go South when just trying to keep warm. Alot of homeless people will want a warmer climate and live where food is grown or produced cheaply and abundantly. (And, that is "South".)
Calm
Actually it needs to be militarized because we will be invaded for water in this century, unless the clowns in ottawa give it away.
Our bought and paid-for clowns in Ottawa will do their best to give it away. Yanks'll sell it back to us as gatorade or coca cola while our own waterworks fall into disrepair and then pawned off for a song to private enterprising jackals. It's the long-term strategy.
It seems odd to me that there was a $54Billion E.I surplus in 2008, and now a Fed Budget deficit of $50 Billion. The EI surplus could have covered this deficit for this year, but they say that EI surplus "was allready spent".
If the Harper govt. "spent" the huge EI surplus last year, does that mean there was a de facto $54Billion deficit last year too?
I think that the Liberals and the CPC [concervatives] are on the same team, and together they are robbing us blind.
But concerning the 54billion EI surplus spent last year, the media is letting Harper away scot free with the theft. Harper stated yesterday in question period the deficit is the fault of those on EI, "they must and should be paid" he said. And not one media person on Global, CTV, nor CBC mentioned a word about his spending the EI fund last year.
Moreover in respect to QP, they no longer even pretend to give the Bloc and NDP coverage time on the news. It is all Con and Lib all the time setting the conceptual framework there are only 2 parties who have a right/ability to run Canada and to make comments on the deficit. Amazing that their anti- democracy attitudes do not impact their consciousness and that they do not realize/care how worthless and useless they are. One can only hope on their deathbeds that they feel shame for their actions.
But yet we have them sorta covering Harper's weird comment of yesterday.
Harper is responding to Iggy's demand that the Min of Finance be fired, and says "I cannot fire the Leader of the Opposition, and with all the tapes I have on him, I do not want to."
Now either Harper flubbed his lines, or is indicating that the tapes he has of Iggy will destroy him as leader of the opposition, so he wants to keep him around until election time and then destroy him with said "tapes".
Iggy is spinning Harper now as Nixon, collecting dirt on his opponents, I guess. One would think MacCarthy would be a more apt descriptor if such was the case.
This was Jack's response that the media refused to cover!
Hon. Jack Layton (Toronto—Danforth, NDP):
Mr. Speaker, the reckless tax cuts to the big profitable banks and the oil corporations, that were brought in by the government and in fact by Paul Martin and the Liberals prior, have left us without the financial capacity to respond when Canadians need us the most, and now we have the biggest deficit in Canadian history.
The chief economist of the Toronto-Dominion Bank, Don Drummond, says that the decisions over the past 10 years have created this structural problem. The fact is the Conservatives have simultaneously created the biggest deficit since Mulroney and at the same time they have thousands of unemployed people who cannot get help. Will he not finally admit that he got it wrong?
Hon. Jack Layton (Toronto—Danforth, NDP):
Mr. Speaker, even the banks who received the corporate tax cuts agree that those tax cuts have caused the structural deficit situation in this country.
One would think with such a big deficit the Prime Minister might be able to point to some results, but the truth is we have another confirmation today that the infrastructure money is just a bunch of announcements. It is not making it out the door. In fact, even federal projects in the exclusive federal jurisdiction to the tune of $462 million have not been approved. Bridges and railway projects and harbours, the money is not flowing. When is the Prime Minister going to get it out the door?
Couple points of info / correction.
That $54billion EI surplus is accumulated... since Paul Martin began pilfering that piggy bank. Its just a surplus on paper... the EI surplus last year would be a very small part of that. In actual practice, all of it vanished into general revenues. So if there was say a $5b EI surplus in a particular year, it is just an undistiguished part of the whole government surplus for that year.
And as to "50 billion deficit and not a cent of it has gone to help the recession"... that isn't true and isn't what Layton was saying. Money budgeted to anything is counted to the surplus/deficit before it is spent, and before it has been specifically allocated. [Private or government, it is accounting practice, and is common sense, to count funds as a liability from the moment you are commited to spending it.]
What Layton is saying is that the government is claiming credit with announcements, but not getting money out the door.
I don't know if this is common in federal spending, but the PC Nova Scotia government has quite often made announcements or passed legislation, and never actually allocated the funds. [And/or announced them again, and finaly allocated them, in a succeeding budget year.] Political have cake and eat it too: get the benies of the announcement, without having the impact on the fiscal surplus/deficit. It would be premature to raise this as a possibility if it isn't already a practice of the Harper government. At any rate, Jack did not [and would not] raise it... but it is something I'd rate as very likely under the circumstances.
But its bad enough the dealys in infrastructure spending approval- even if those delays turn into never.
Whenever transit advocates propose extensive subways systems in Toronto, politicians and others simply say "it'll cost 50 billion, it's unrealistic, we're broke, there's no money" and brush it off. Then they announce a 50 billion deficit from surplus the years before, and say it's no big deal, (which may be true).
So I suggest, next year, let's build one of these TTC subway fantasy plans that transit advocates have created,
http://theintrepid.blogspot.com/2009/04/ttc-fantasy-maps_06.html
Then ken, by that very same token, if the money has not been spent, then we are not really in a deficit situation. The money is just sitting there then and only appearing to be a deficit on paper. As such, why would the opposition MP be clammering about a deficit that is not yet occuring if it is only on paper?
So, I think your analysis is incorrect, the funding proposals have not been approved, thus they have not been dispensed as a budget line item to the appropriate "structural" Ministries, who in fact would have just received their yearly budget allotment notifications at the first of April.
They have been announced but not put onto paper is what Jack is saying, so I believe the deficit we are seeing is not part of what was proposed and is awaiting approval.
Remind have you seen Politics lately. Every time there is an issue that the NDP owns and would make the other two uncomfortable. No NDP on the panel. In fact there has been an incredible lack of either bloc or NDP on most discussions. Media even our beloved CBC is at fault for our democratic decline. When all politicians are painted with the same brush and they never show where the NDP stand out against the rest, is it any wonder we don't have more people voting or voting for the NDP.
I do not get the politics shows, except the one on CTV on Sundays, and I never watch it, as I play poker Sunday mornings at the same time. ;)
Though I do occasionally watch the At Issue panel when they are on, on CBC National, and they have never had a NDP or left voice, on there, so I do not expect them to start.
Politics is available as a podcast(they never show much other than who is talking anyway) but I suppose 20-40 meg would take a while on dial up.
For ever, at 24.0kb!
Just to slip back to the thread title(sort of) - while mention has been made of UI(excuse me, EI) involvement in this, the serious undermining of the stability of national finance that we are now enjoying can be taken back a little further. While the gutting of that system, an important economic stabilizer, is producing a lot of pain now, the earlier gutting of a lot of the progressivity in the income tax system, mainly done by the Mulroney government, but pushed ahead by Chretien/Martin(so it's a real American-style bipartisan effort) has really destoyed a lot of the automatic stabilizer effect of that system. The effect was only compounded by replacing the lost revenue with something like the GST, which is anything but an automatic stabilizer, besides being pretty regressive. The Harper cutting of the GST rate from 7 to 5% was about the only sensible thing that crew did, although if they'd had a clue they would have replaced the revenue thus lost by increasing the progressivity of the income tax system by restoring the upper end marginal tax rates that the Mulroney crew demolished. That would have immensely strengthened automatic stabilizers and reduced the impact of the current mess on a lot of households.
Nailing Mulroney on Airbus or Schreiber bribes is like getting Al Capone on tax evasion. Both did far more damage.
Remind have you seen Politics lately. Every time there is an issue that the NDP owns and would make the other two uncomfortable. No NDP on the panel. In fact there has been an incredible lack of either bloc or NDP on most discussions. Media even our beloved CBC is at fault for our democratic decline. When all politicians are painted with the same brush and they never show where the NDP stand out against the rest, is it any wonder we don't have more people voting or voting for the NDP.
When I watched Politics a while back, Don Newman used to have a segment with a strategist from each party being represented, but perhaps that has changed now. Often Lorne Nystrom was there representing the NDP.
CPAC is probably the only channel which has on MP's from each party almost every night. Most nights Peter Van Dusen and Pierre Donais on the English and French programs respectively, usually interview a panel composed of one MP from each of the parties. You might want to check that out.
[url=http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/642575]More Voices on the deficit[/url]
Six months ago, Mr. Harper asked for our votes, saying the economy is fine and we should invest in the stock market. He played poker with the Canadian economy and our jobs in order to bluff his way to government. Since then 400,000 jobs have been lost and the federal government has fallen $50 billion into deficit. May Canada have few leaders like him - we cannot afford to play his game.
[url=http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/642575]Eugene Parks, Victoria, B.C.[/url]
[url=http://www.rabble.ca/columnists/2009/06/why-flaherty-loves-his-50-billio... Flaherty loves his $50 billion deficit[/url]
.It is astonishing given all the commentary and news stories about the "sudden" $50 billion federal deficit there has not been a single story in the mainstream media that focuses on the principal explanation: the huge tax cuts made by the Liberals and Conservatives since 1995.
First it was former finance minister Paul Martin with his $100 billion income tax cut over five years starting in 2000. Then it was Jim Flaherty in 2007 with $60 billion over five years. Add to that the $12 billion lost each year by lowering the GST from seven per cent to five per cent and the $50 billion is no mystery. It was an inevitability whenever the next recession hit.
But what to make of the sudden embrace of deficits by those who built their political careers on fiscal conservatism? There is no mystery here, either. Neo-cons like Jim Flaherty don't really care about deficits per se -- their ultimate goal is downsizing the social and redistributive role of government. From that perspective, the $50 billion shortfall is a godsend: a useful crisis that will provide the rationale for huge spending cuts.
Without all those tax cuts, it is arguable that there would be no deficit at all. Not only that, of course, we could have been spending that money on the collective needs of Canadians -- municipal infrastructure, national child care, pharmacare, lowered tuition fees, money for greening the economy, targeted industrial development.
Giving away the store
Between 1984 and 2006, the federal government voluntarily gave up more than $250 billion in revenue through tax cuts, which went disproportionately to the wealthy and large corporations. But just looking at the tax cuts implemented by the current minister since that time reveals that half the projected deficit was caused by Jim Flaherty himself
Before the neoliberal shitstorm hit, Ottawa's overall federal tax revenues were well below the OECD average, and far below the EU-15 average.
Without all those tax cuts, it is arguable that there would be no deficit at all.
Not only that, of course, we could have been spending that money on the collective needs of Canadians -- municipal infrastructure, national child care, pharmacare, lowered tuition fees, money for greening the economy, targeted industrial development.
And yet some people never learn and vote against their own best interests, in order to make the rich richer, and slaves of themselves.
