Flaherty’s Follies

The deficit in this country is now apparently $50 billion or more. I personally stand by my earlier estimate of eleventy billion dollars as being every bit as legitimate as any other guess. Now Flaherty’s party has leapt to his defense saying that these are tough times and that it’s difficult to predict what will be needed in order to bail out this or that industry or to fund EI. (I thought EI had a surplus, what happened?) The Conservatives are saying that this is money that the other parties would like to see spent to revive the economy, so how can the opposition complain?

I think what is significant here though is that this is part of a series of revisions, first there was to be no recession in Canada, then there was to be a small recession but no deficit, then there was to be a deficit, now it’s a bigger deficit. The pattern here is of the Conservatives confidently asserting that the best-case scenario was the most likely outcome – how convenient – only to later come back with a revision to the new best-case scenario. This is in stark contrast to the Liberal approach throughout the 1990s and early 2000s where Paul Martin and later Ralph Goodale consistently under-promised and over-delivered with cautious budgets that were actually derided by the Cons and their precursors for being overly, what’s that word, oh yeah, conservative when figuring out the numbers.

Given the magnitude of our economic woes I would find it likely that even Martin and Goodale would run deficits in times like these (unless they went for a wholesale shift towards a radically shrunken government or dramatically increased taxes) but given the track record of those two, I’d expect that we would have been given the bad news up front, as if we were adults.

Shorter Rob Mitchell

The former Harrisite on the federal budget: Ignatieff’s use of legitimate parliamentary mechanisms is an undemocratic attack that forced Harper and Flaherty to make an un-Conservative budget. Also Iggy’s ancestors were nobility somewhere else a long time ago.

Deficits!

The federal budget deficit going to be something like eleventy billion dollars. What’s that you say? Eleventy billion dollars is a made-up number? Well so are all the numbers that Harper and Flaherty are throwing out there.

Budget Prediction: Give PPPs a chance

I’ll keep this short: I expect that a great deal of the stimulus money that the Cons plan to announce will be tied to forcing provincial and municipal governments to use public-private partnerships (PPPs) to build infastructure. This should thrill users of Highway 407.

In which Gerry makes the coalition sound scary

It’s been a while since I fisked something, so here we go with Gerry Nicholls reasons why the opposition shouldn’t do this:

The more I think about it, the more I think the Liberals would be making a dreadful error if they carried out their constitutional “coup.”

HAHAHA. We started with a contradiction. If it’s constitutional, how is it a coup?

I mean think about it.

Okay, Gerry, I will, because it appears that you didn’t

* Do they really want Stephane Dion to be the guy leading the government at this time of fiscal crisis?

Swell, an ad hominem attack. Do I really want Harper and Flaherty leading the government in this time of fiscal crisis. They already changed their position on deficits and now they are almost certainly lying to hide the fact that there will be one (oh sure, if the economy doesn’t worsen, no stimulus is needed, and magic fairies lead Jim to a pot of gold then maybe there will be a surplus). The reason we are in this mess is that Jim just showed us that he has no plan. His “update” was a joke. I heard it on the radio and I pictured him rolling his eyes and making the “jerk-off” motion with his hand at every pause in his speech.

* Do they really want to be part of a government where the NDP will be calling the shots on fiscal policy?

At least someone will be, you know, actually calling some shots instead of having a do-nothing economic update.

* Do they think Canadians will really warm to the idea of an unelected government usurping control of the country?

We never did, that’s why Fortier couldn’t win a seat in the House. All of the Liberal and NDP members were legally elected some six weeks ago. Canadians do not vote for a government, they vote for MPs. Take a civics class, Gerry.

* Do they really want to make some sort of deal with the separatists?

Because, you know, two things that Harper never did were to court nationalists in Quebec or count on Bloc votes in the House.

Maybe that’s why Prime Minister Harper delayed the non-confidence vote for a week. He wants to give the Liberals time to think this through.

Or because he just shat his pants and is desperately playing for time. Does anyone really believe that a hyper-partisan like Harper would have any interest in helping the opposition? The one thing I think that I confidently say about Steve is that he plays for keeps.

What’s in the Economic Update, Jim?

Nothing! Absolutely nothing! Stupid! You’re so stupid!

Seriously, all that we have is some nasty strike-breaking law and an attempt to beat down the opposition parties. Oh yeah, and the ol’ Ernie Eves hide-a-deficit ruse.

When the other guy fights dirty, you still have to roll with the punches

It’s pretty sleazy what Flaherty is doing by using the budget deficit that his clusterfuck policies (that’s a highly technical economic term, kids) caused as a pretext to choke off funding to other parties. The Cons know that they have the cash to ride these cuts out – their finances look the best right now of all the federal parties.

The reality here is that the Liberals can cry foul or even play a game of brinksmanship over this. While trying to make this a confidence motion may make the party sound tough, again the Cons are in a better position to fight yet another ultimately meaningless election. What the Liberals need to do is get up, dust themselves off, and sign up at the Obama dojo of web 2.0 fundraising and organization. Yeah Flaherty’s move is scummy, yeah there are lots of good reasons to oppose this disgusting partisanship. There are also lots of good reasons why the Liberals need to get out there and get in touch with their grassroots again.

Voting Day -1

Some random thoughts:

It’s all over tomorrow. From what the polls are saying, this looks like it may be a parliament nearly identical to the one that preceded it. One thing I would like to see is that the Conservatives make no more inroads in Ontario. It is still unconscionable to me that Flaherty would badmouth this province as the “last place” to invest because he was unsatisfied with our corporate tax rates. Whatever you feel about tax rates the sheer stupidity of a federal ministry deriding one province as no place to do business because it frustrated his goal of creating a low-tax “brand” for Canada is mind-boggling. By the way Jim, the fact that equalization screws over Ontario may also have something to do with our tax rates.

I really hope that Harper does not get a majority, I like my iPod.

Does anyone know what Harper would do with a majority? His government put up the censorship provisions in bill C10 (something they surely did not run on) and then dropped them in the new platform. Remember income trusts? The greatest threat from Harper is that it is simply impossible to predict what policies he will implement. He might extend the Afghan mission indefinitely, or break up the CBC or, well, who knows?

This could be three minority parliaments in row. Has the sky fallen? Proportional representation will seem less scary the more we see minority governments operate just fine.

Buying Votes in Windsor (but not Oshawa)

Not too long ago I seem to recall that the Cons were dead against any money going to subsidize struggling industries. GM closed a plant in the finance minister’s riding and they shrugged. Meh. This is business, stuff happens, move to Alberta. But now that there’s an election, suddenly the Ford Motor Company is deserving of our tax dollars to reopen a plant.

Now whether subsidizing a domestic auto industry is a good thing or not is something that I’m sure you can debate, but I bet there are a bunch of soon-to-be-laid-off GM workers in Oshawa who get the feeling they were cheated because their plant ran into trouble too early for an election. Something to think about now that the cult of Harper ads are talking about how he’s principled and knows where he stands. Heh.

Things to not say when you represent Oshawa

The CAW is stepping up its protest in Oshawa. I remain doubtful that they can get GM to change its mind though. On the other hand, if I were Jim Flaherty, I’d be extremely worried about my seat in parliament come the next election. His whole line about not investing in Ontario is really going to hurt him. The GM workers seem to quote it to everyone. Payback’s a bitch, Jim.