Friday, March 10, 2006

April Fools!!!

Wow!! Just Wow!! The Cons were harping over the whole fiscal imbalance thing and made it a key issue in the January Election. Now, in a statement today, Jim Flaherty now says that the whole fiscal imbalance thing was just a myth. My god, this guy is really freaking dumb. The fiscal imbalance problem is real but not as bad as it was stated by the Cons during the election and not nearly as good as Jimmy Flay is saying. Then again, he didn't do that great of a job as finance minister in Ontario so we all know finances aren't his strong suit.

The fiscal imbalance that Jimmy Flay was talking about is that every province and territory is doing just fine except for Ontario and PEI. Now, last time I checked, Newfoundland wasn't the booming economy that everyone thinks it is, and 15% HST that is in every Atlantic province isn't usually seen as a sign of economic boom. He also stated that addressing the fiscal imbalance wasn't a priority for the federal government which was quite the contrary statement from the election campaign. I guess the Cons wanted us to stand up because lying down clenched your ass cheeks too much.

Here is the Con's stance on fiscal imbalance from their blue book:
Fiscal Imbalance
In the last eight years, the federal government has amassed enormous surpluses. Meanwhile, many provinces have seen reduced revenues and have had to run deficits in order to pay for education, health, and other social programs. While some sectoral and ad hoc agreements with provinces have temporarily reduced the financial pressure, it is time for a comprehensive agreement.
The plan
A Conservative government will:
• Work with the provinces in order to achieve a long-term agreement which would address the issue of fiscal imbalance in a permanent fashion.
• Ensure that any new shared-cost programs in areas of provincial/territorial responsibility have the consent of the majority of provinces to proceed, and that provinces should be given the right to opt out of the federal program with compensation, so long as the province offers a similar program with similar accountability structures.
• Work to achieve with the provinces permanent changes to the equalization formula which would ensure that non-renewable natural resource revenue is removed from the equalization formula to encourage economic growth. We will ensure that no province is adversely affected from changes to the equalization formula.
(Source: The Conservative Party 2006 Election Platform)

4 comments:

S.K. said...

The way Flaherty and Eves balanced budgets in Ontario was to sell off major crown assets and oh yeah to lie. Wait for these guys to sell the 401 or maybe another nuclear power plant or maybe Hibernia. Just wait.

Unknown said...

Can't wait for "Pepsi Presents:The Trans Canada Highway" or "Parliament Hill; Powered by AOL" or better yet"iQuebec"

Dave said...

Heh. PEI elects 4 Liberals out of 4 available seats. Wonder what his motivation is there? And actually, duie to hydro in Labrador, and oil and gas revenue, and half the population moving away, Newfound land and Labrador is doing pretty well economically. But they will still bitch and moan.

Technically, due to a lack of resource revenue sharing, the territories are the worst off in the country, but the territories aren't close to electing Tories any time soon.

Anonymous said...

The issue is Harper's gameplan to substantially reduce the powers of the central government in Canada by devolving those powers on the provinces. If Harper is successful, Canada will become a balkanized nation of bickering premiers, with no common standards uniting Canadians as a nation, and with the Prime Minister sitting in the booth closest to the kitchen, with his hands tucked under his seat, doing nothing.

Harper and his New Tories aim at a massive transfer of power (legislative, financial) to the provinces, through a deal cut in smoky rooms, and over a policy which has not been tested by being debated vigorously during an election campaign. Harper is aiming at a stealth-change of how Canada functions, agreed to by premiers and him, without the voters of the provinces or the voters of Canada being involved in such a decision. It is akin to a Meech Lake Accord without requiring Canadians to vote on it.

Is this process of Harper's democractic? Not by a long shot.

Have Canadians agreed to these dramatic changes in the federal / provincial structure? Not by a long shot.

Will Harper open his dealings to public debate? Never – he does not agree with his decisions being debated by voter representatives.

Harper is aiming at making Ontario the "bad guy", and getting the other provinces to gang up on Ontario's Premier. He is hoping to stampede Ontario into agreeing to a deal, so that Harper can then go the country for an election, hoping to win more seats in Quebec and gain a majority government.

As Chantal Hebert wrote: "Nothing would do more to accelerate Harper's plan to emerge as the default federalist option in Quebec than a campaign that found the federal Liberals and the Bloc Québécois on the wrong side of a deal with Charest on the fiscal imbalance."

Harper's stampede tactics (similar to those used by Bush in his deceptive entry into the war in Iraq) have been successful so far – he suckered Duceppe and Layton into supporting a vote of no confidence in the Liberal government. If it worked once, why not try again?

What can Ontario's Premier, Dalton McGuinty, do given the by now obvious strategy of Harper?

Simple. He can take a stand on principle: that such decisions should be made by the people. McGuinty can make the whole backroom-dealing process transparent by simply stating right now that he requires two things to take place: (1) that all meetings of Premiers on this subject, and any meeting he has with Harper, be open to the public, and televised; and (2) that he will not agree to any deal unless it has been put to the voters of Ontario through a plebescite.

This will immediately make the whole process of nation-changing more democratic, put pressure on the Premiers of all provinces to consider voters as well and perhaps adopt similar plebescites, and relieve McGuinty of any pressure to rush into a deal "in the interests of Canada" (as John Tory has tried to frame it).

So, Dalton: strike a blow for democracy. Call for transparency in meetings of Premiers on this "backroom Meech Lake Deal", and have Ontario voters decide the issue.