Sure, let's not be reckless.
And hell, none of those opportunistic experiments please.
I'm all for staying this course over the next few weeks.
But we need to shift away from the CPC course of -
contempt of Parliament :
"This is serious matter that goes to the heart of the House's undoubted role in holding the government to account," Milliken declared.
contempt for Canadians :
For all of its imperfections (and they are many), the only thing close to a democratic national body in Canada is the House of Commons. To be contemptuous of its members is to disdain those who elected them. Canadians get precious few chances to determine what their leaders do. When voters elected a minority government in 2008, they were signalling that they didn’t trust Stephen Harper’s Conservatives (or indeed any other party) to run the nation’s business single-handed.
Instead, they wanted the opposition parties to check government — to act as watchdogs, moderate its ideological excesses and keep it in line. But throughout the life of this now-dead Parliament, Prime Minister Stephen Harper refused to accept the voters’ verdict. His decision to operate as if he controlled a majority of Commons seats may have been good short-term politics. But it contradicted both the spirit and reality of the very limited mandate voters had given him.
reckless spending :
“The needs of most Canadians are neglected due to reckless spending on Conservative pet projects,” (CCPA Alternative Federal Budget Coordinator David Macdonald) says. “Canadians should be warned: deep spending cuts that will affect the services they need are on the horizon. The government isn’t revealing where the pain is going to come.”
“This budget wastes our time and our money,” says CCPA Senior Economist Armine Yalnizyan. “The Harper government has yet again tabled a fiscal plan that doesn’t deal with the tough issues of the day. How will we deal with aging infrastructure and high youth unemployment, a shrinking workforce and uncertain pensions? The government’s response seems to be that these are our problems, not theirs.”
3 comments:
What else can you expect out of the mouth of a Christian evangelical/conservative/member of the Canadian branch of the GOP, but only mendacity and hypocrisy?
Well if "staying the course" means denying Harper a majority, I will despair less.
But this latest announcement from Kenney about creating a Ministry of Religious Express or whatever the f*ck he's calling it is disgusting.
Also, why isn't anyone questioning their so-called cuts to the civil service (those set to retire will not be replaced)? The loss of experienced civil servants due to the baby boomers reaching retirement age has been a huge issue in terms of keeping the civil service capable of transitioning without negative impacts on policy-making and service delivery. Programs were created to groom the next generation of content experts, corporate memory and leaders. The implication that these retiring civil servants don't need to be replaced is an indication of Harper not caring about the civil service functioning. This purposeful disarray will lead to programs being ineffective and therefore on the chopping block. For f*ck's sake are there no labour economists out there willing to point out the dangers that await should Harper pull this stunt?
I've written about cuts through attrition before, Beijing, and you're right. What harper also doesn't say about cuts to the public service is that he has demanded that departments cut their budgets on average by 5% so far that may be higher now. So he's forcing departments to cut staff so he can claim he didn't do it, the departments themselves decided it was a good idea.
Not replacing retiring workers does cut jobs. The positions no longer exist, therefore, fewer jobs.
Note the use of the word "attrition" he uses often. That's not only killing jobs as people retire, but killing them as term worker's terms are up not replacing them, and killing the positions.
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