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Friday, April 24, 2015

What do you get from a budget conceived in the bowels of Bay Street?

You get a budget that means nothing to the working and middle class.

Over the next six months the Conservative government will pump out ad after ad about how they have been stewards of the Canadian economy, at the expense of Canadian taxpayers I might add.

They will tell Canadians how they support the armed forces and increased their budget. This, after cutting their budget in the past. They will brag about raising the TFSA deposit amount to 10,000 dollars annually, for those of you wealthy folks who can find 10,000 surplus dollars.

The conservative media are already touting the "benefit of the TFSA to seniors", those of you who either don't have children or whose children have now moved out but what about the majority of Canadian seniors who are not that fortunate? I live in an affluent community west of Toronto where many seniors, those 55 or older, were adversely affected by the crash of 2008, some are working part time at the local grocery store cleaning tables and sweeping floors while others are rummaging through blue boxes on garbage day looking for bottles and cans to supplement their meager pensions.

They will brag about lowering taxes to small business that is estimated to save owners between 1500 $ and 25,000 $. How does that really help small business, the economy or unemployment? Don't get me wrong, I don't begrudge small business owners the tax relief but I do question the economics benefit of it.

To balance the budget the Conservatives squeezed various federal departments to create surpluses they paid administrators a bonus based on how much they starved their department, including National Defense, they milked the EI surplus of 1.5 billion dollars, a surplus created by changing the rules of qualifying at the expense of the working class and to top things off they delved into the "contingency fund" established by the "previous government" in the event of a major crisis.

The crisis Canada is facing today is a Conservative made crisis, it is they who did not plan for a world financial collapse, it is they who lowered the GST as an election platform, it is they who lowered corporate taxes as an election platform and finally, it is they who did not prepare for the potential collapse of oil prices. It is they who have no bragging rights.

Oh! they will argue that there is no predictor for oil prices, but that is a lie. This is not the first time that OPEC has flexed their oil dominance and it won't be the last.

It was Joe Oliver who "pooh, poohed" an opposition statement that "budgets balance themselves" .... they do, if you have the revenue .... they don't, if you have starved the beast.

It is a sad testament to Stephen Harper's reign of incompetence.

If the economists around the World are correct and the World economy stalls again, Canada, under this Prime Minister will longer have the necessary financial resources to weather the storm.

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