On Prudent Spending

Now that the former fiscal masters of the universe, a.k.a. the Harper government, has left us with a structural deficit that will mean $3 billion to $5 billion in each of the next five years, the usual ideologues are suggesting that Justin Trudeau needs to reign in his deficit-spending plan. Financial probity is nothing to be lightly dismissed, but The Star's Carol Goar has some suggestions on how that deficit can be made more manageable:

... clean up the tax credits, deductions, exemptions and deferrals (known collectively as “tax expenditures”) that cost Ottawa billions of dollars. The Conservatives brought in at least 70 of them. But past Liberal governments created them, too.

These hidden expenditures cost approximately $150 billion a year in foregone revenue.

A second alternative is to stop spending money on Conservative priorities. The Liberals were never in favour of jailing young offenders for drug possession and other non-violent crimes; detaining unsuccessful refugee claimants; building mega prisons; auditing charities whose leaders spoke out against government policies; buying top-of-the-line stealth fighter jets; or airing prime-time government ads.

A third choice is to terminate, or substantially scale back, corporate subsidies. Right now, there is a request for $1 billion from Bombardier sitting on the prime minister’s desk. Chrysler came calling last year. Over the last half century, Industry Canada has disbursed $22 billion to businesses ranging from oilsands developers to ice cream parlours, high tech manufacturers to pizzerias. The assumption is that these handouts boost growth and create jobs, but no government has provided credible evidence to back up this proposition.

The cupboards need not be bare as long as ideology no longer trumps strategic expenditures that will benefit the many instead of the favoured few so slavishly courted by the former regime.

Tee Hee

I trust this needs no explanation:



Unfortunately, however, there seem to be a lot of Charlie Browns out there.

On Mad King Stephen's Monomania

This is not the post I was planning for today, but these letters about Stephen Harper's economic ineptitude seemed too good not to share:

Re: Another Orange Wave for Alberta? Aug. 20

Of course, the prospect of an Orange Wave in Alberta is tantalizing to many and I applaud Tim Harper’s article. However when he quotes Brent Rathgeber as saying that falling oil prices are not Stephen Harper’s fault, it would have been just as astute to point out that perhaps our PM can’t be blamed for the fall of oil prices but he certainly can and should be blamed for doing what no “investor” or “economic planner” worth his salt would or should do, which is to put all his eggs in one basket.

A prime minister with a sound economic plan that looked to a solid future would have long ago diversified Canada’s strengths by encouraging, supporting and subsidizing (much the way the oil patch has been subsidized over the years) our manufacturing sector, which took such a tremendous hit when our loonie became a high petrodollar and has yet to recover.

How does Harper have the gall to ask about anyone’s “economic action plan” when even the most cursory glance at our present near-recession predicament would make it abundantly clear that he, himself, didn’t have one that worked worth a bean.

J. Bartram-Thomas, Richmond Hill

It is factually based and verified that this government has exacerbated, greatly, the economic situation Canada finds itself in, world-wide or not. From its “all our eggs in one basket” reliance on commodities, to massive cutbacks to social programs, science, and R&D, to surplus elimination/deficit creation by handing out tax breaks for the rich and companies that hold but don’t spend cash, and so on and so on, this government has empirically proven itself to be both myopic and inept at handling our asset base. Any of the opposition parties would have done a better job at preparing us for the worst.

If one was on that unfortunate plane a few months back, as a supposedly skilled pilot was directly aiming at the side of a mountain, would one turn to one’s seat companion and declare that this is no time to change our aviation “expert”?

David Klarer, Oakville

In Which Stephen Harper Tries To Change The Channel

One suspects it won't work.

Lest We forget

Buy all accounts it will be a long and dirty campaign. Time to awaken Canada in any way we can.



H/t The Toronto Star

Share. Inform. Engage.

It sounds like it will be a long campaign. Each of us has a role to play.

Harper Under Seige

Once more, editorial cartoonist Graeme MacKay scores a solid bullseye.



As does Corrigan over at The Star:



And let's not forget Star readers:

Since the post-2008 Great Recession, Stephen Harper’s primary focus on energy (oil/gas) economic action strategies have painted our economic flexibilities into a corner. Now we find our transnational economic drivers near exhausted.

Interest rates are now .05 per cent. We are on the precipice of falling financially/economically into quicksand recessionary territory.

In hindsight, consider what if we had developed multi-faceted strategies for dynamic, clean-energy manufacturing 21st century technologies in critical mass in construction, science, industry and commerce? Would we be so constrained now with lowest possible oil/gas commodity prices? Would our “loonie” be so vulnerable? Would our frivolousness with tax dollars tied to ineffective foreign policies be so committed to 20th century industrial, free market strategic imbecilities?

Harper’s single-minded chess tactics with much of what he mismanages is fast becoming an economically unmanoeuvreable position now on a precarious global stage. And now with Iran’s economic sanctions lifting as result of the deal with the Western powers, there’s no promise of recovery ever being tied to those “triple-digit” commodity prices that Canada’s oil producers followed our PM so recklessly on.

Brian McLaughlin, Saint John, NB

I’ll have to agree with Mr. Goodale’s take on Harper’s economic record. What’s Mr. Harper’s experience in economics, again? None in the private sector that I could find. I think Canadians know who is really in over their head.

Geoffrey Allen, Markham

And one more reminder from MacKay of Mr. Harper's fiscal ineptitude:

If You Know Some Young Potential Voters

Please send them this


so that we can have less of this


and this

in the future.

The Art Of Misdirection

Some, I guess, are better at it than others.

The Harper Legacy: Empty Mantras And Empty Ideology

I hope readers don't think I have grown lazy or burnt-out when I reprint letters from The Toronto Star. It is just that their observations and ideas are frequently so nicely expressed that I think they merit some exposure in the blogosphere.

Today's offers a sharp rebuke to the tired Tory ideology of low corporate taxes as the path to prosperity, a mantra that has been repeatedly shown to be as devoid of value as the head of their leader and our Prime Minister is devoid of ideas and vision.

Re: Canada hit by unexpected rise in jobless rate, Jan. 10

When asked about the December job losses, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty lamely trots out his usual PMO-approved talking point that we must “keep taxes low to create the environment where job creation can flourish.” Translation: Slash government.

Not just hogwash, sir — stale hogwash!

Taxes are already low enough. It is the continual bleeding by mass employers that drive these kinds of losses, like plant closures announced by Kellogg in London, Heinz at Leamington, CCL Industries in Penetanguishine and others that have already occurred over the past several years, including the steel industry. True, many closures are in Ontario, but that’s because that province traditionally formed our industrial heartland.

Indeed, some jobs are lost because of technology but the majority are because U.S. head offices are taking jobs back to the U.S. or other firms are moving to low-wage countries that Canadians can never compete with, with labour rates as low as $1 a day, such as the garment industry.

If the Conservative government in Ottawa is serious about job creation, it will formulate and actively promote an industrial strategy for Canada, one that goes beyond the Alberta tar sands and the oil industry. Elsewhere, tinkering with a few high-tech projects may create a relative handful of well-paying work but not the thousands of jobs and steady wages that industry can provide.

The Tories demonstrated that they knew this sort of thing could work when they pumped life-saving public funding into GM of Canada and Chrysler Canada when those two industrial titans were threatened with bankruptcy. It’s that or reverse course on slashing government, the only other mass employment sector we have left.

In the end, it seems the Harper government is rendered impotent on jobs creation by its own narrow-minded ideology based on fantasy and blind to the reality of our preventable national decline.

Brad Savage, Scarborough