A finger pointing budget.

Tax cuts for corporations, cuts to the public services, de-regulation, all under the excuse of erasing the deficit.

What we end up with is a push to sell off more of Canada’s resources and companies by inviting more foreign investment, privatization of more public services, and fewer rules and less accountability for both investors and those taking over public services.

Harper had already made up his mind to do these things long ago.  The budget simply offered superficial justification for these moves.

He has been gunning for the public service for years, decades, actually.  He, like all reformers, believes in smaller government, and privatization of as many services as possible.  Everything is about a small group of people making as much money as possible.  And smaller government does not mean less control by the ruling party.  It means less oversight by independent agencies, fewer studies, less accountability to the public.

Harper started putting this plan into action by replacing as many independent oversight agents as possible.  Now he wants to reduce the number of those watchdogs.  This was announced before the budget, and it had nothing to do with reducing the deficit.

The federal government should consider "consolidating" the growing number of watchdogs and other oversight bodies, which can take up too much of management's time and make public servants too risk-averse, says the prime minister's hand-picked advisory committee on the public service.

Those poor public servants!  Somehow, I doubt they would agree with this assessment.  The oversight agencies and watchdogs help protect them from partisan deputy ministers (appointed by the ruling party) who are in turn pressured by Ministers.  Remove the watchdogs, and you remove impartiality and accountability.

The Speech from the Throne gives us an idea of what Harper has in mind with the removal of watch dogs:

He plans to:  untangle the daunting maze of regulations that needlessly complicates project approvals, replacing it with simpler, clearer processes that offer improved environmental protection and greater certainty to industry...Too often, however, grassroots efforts are hobbled by red tape. Too often, local solutions are denied access to government assistance because they do not fit the bureaucratic definition of the problem. Too often, the efforts of communities falter not on account of a lack of effort or heart, but because of a lack of expertise to turn good ideas into reality.

His solution? (L)ook to innovative charities and forward-thinking private-sector companies to partner on new approaches to many social challenges.

Great.  Oversight provided by those very same self-interest groups and profit oriented agencies whose self-serving pressures oversight agencies are meant to protect the public from.

Harper also plans to cut 245 senior jobs in the public service.  And who will be performing their duties?  A large part of staffing has already been transferred to deputy ministers, so it is likely that we will see much of the same political interference in other areas.

Steve plans to make 40% of cuts he says are need to reduce the deficit by making those cuts to departments and the public service in general.  That means many, many jobs will be cut, wages and benefits will be affected, and quality of service will suffer.

Here’s where the finger pointing comes in.  He has told us that the scheduled increase in June for public servants won’t be cut, but wages may be frozen after that.  So far, he hasn’t definitely said he’ll go after public servants’ pensions and benefits, but that door isn’t closed.  He has even said he won’t lay anyone off, except those senior managers.

But here’s the catch: departments will not be getting increases (except for DND and international aid) and they are furthermore expected to reduce their expenses.  While dealing with less funding, they are expected to come up with the pay increases promised by the Harper government in an agreement between unions and Treasury Board.

Harper welches on an agreement with public servants, and when departments have to lay some off to meet the funding cuts, Stevo can point his finger at the departments and blame them for the lay-offs.  He can also blame them for poor services and cuts to pensions and benefits.

Then, after forcing this evisceration of our public services, he can rant on about how much better the private sector would be at providing for the public.

Sure.  Public service now provided by private industry bent on making as much profit as possible with as little accountability as possible.