A government, corrupt, duplicitous and conniving, fudges the books to appear fiscally prudent, though the opposite is true. Its all important goal? The appearance of a balanced budget after running up consecutive deficits – some of the largest in history – during its tenure.
The reason? We’re months away from an election.
The federal Conservatives rolled out their latest budget Tuesday, shouting even louder the unchanging lie they are competent fiscal managers.
The sleight of hand used to “balance” the books this year wasn’t lost on anyone paying attention. Harper and co. hope there are enough inattentive, indifferent or blind partisans to keep their merry band of Canadian-haters in power.
As many quickly pointed out, the $1.4 billion surplus came about solely because the government sold off $2.1 billion in General Motors shares, reducing the contingency reserve fund to $1 billion from the normal $3 billion. It also raided $3.4 billion from the Employment Insurance system.
Each of those moves was something of a slap in the face of Canadians.
The sale of GM shares comes at a time when we could use a voice during some shifts in the market and uncertainty in the auto sector in Ontario. That the government delayed introducing the budget until after the start of the new fiscal year so that the revenue from the shares counts in 2015 rather than last year makes the rationale for the move glaringly obvious.
Speaking of uncertainty, reducing the contingency fund precisely when the economy is more precarious than it’s been since the recession caused by the financial services industry smacks of poor judgment and opportunism, two Harper traits always on display. Oil prices remain low – export revenues reduced by $40 billion – yet Finance Minister Joe Oliver pretends otherwise, counting on increases not widely predicted. Same too for forecasts in economic growth, currently being downgraded. If ever there was a time for a contingency, it’s now.
Playing games with EI – something the Conservatives harped about when the Liberals were in power – is both hypocritical (nothing new there) and an insult to out of work Canadians and those in precarious positions due to systemic weakness in the economy, particularly the labour market.
The overall employment rate is worse than when Harper first came to power in 2006.
Despite the government’s claims, it has done little to help a weak economy, nor to help the unemployed with only one in five of those who came off unemployment rolls since September 2009 finding a job, while four of five gave up looking.
The “balanced” budget is to be achieved through some $7.5 billion in trickery – we’d have a $6.1 billion deficit if not for the sell-offs and sell-outs. Then there’s the matter of $7 billion in handouts for the highly advertised – your tax dollars at waste – universal child care benefit and income splitting, both moves widely panned as ineffective and unfair vote-buying moves that will end up benefitting few at a tremendous cost to the rest of Canadians.
Anyone watching this government and making an unbiased assessment will be well aware that fiscal competency, care for citizens and concern for the social fabric of the country are issues Harper disregards consistently. They are out for power and to serve a corporate agenda, all the while giving lip service to good governance in order to convince enough of the gullible to triumph in the first past the post system. The farce will continue for as long as we let it.
