Bloc Québécois leader, Gilles Duceppe has come forward saying that the federal deficit needed to prop up the Canadian economy does not necessarily need to be as high as projected. This comes as a surprise, considering the many demands and accusations of inaction on the economy from the opposition in December.
However, Duceppe is quoted in La Presse yesterday as saying that cuts to the government apparatus could yield many savings, and produce a deficit of only $3 billion dollars, instead of $40 billion.
Duceppe gives the example of the Ministry of Justice whose budget grew by 115% in recent years as evidence there are savings to be made. However, the BQ leader said these cuts should not impact jobs.
Duceppe also took aim at Ignatieff saying that the Liberal leader should not support an unsatisfactory budget, by fear of an election, because he would then become just like Stéphane Dion - who avoided bringing down the Conservative government on 18 confidence votes.
The Bloc leader continued to say that the opposition coalition was the best alternative for the country, and that Michael Ignatieff would have a very likely chance of becoming Prime Minister should his party decide to defeat the government on the January 27 budget. He strongly believes the Governor General, Michaëlle Jean, would let a coalition of opposition parties govern rather than send Canadians to the polls again.
January 16, 2009
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I have a question or two to ask of you Capital C, during the years, from way back when, how much money did Quebec get from the federal government. I know it is in the BILLIONS OF DOLLARS. And still today Quebec still begs for more.
Whenever a province gets money from the federal government, their newspapers have it written for all to see. Apparently Quecbers are prevented from knowing.
Quebec alone has recieves billions of dollars from Alberta alone. Yet THE BLOC WANTS TO SHUT THE OIL-SANDS- THE VERY HAND THAT FEEDS QUEBEC.
Where has the Quebec government done with all those billions of dollars. Do the 'la presse media' ever inform their readers that Quebec is the only province to recieve the most money and nothing is done WHERE IS CHAREST USING THE MONEY ON-CHECK IT OUT."
The time will come when provinces will inform Quebec-NO MORE MONEY
YOU HAVE ENOUGH, YOU WANT TO SPEND IT ON JUNK THEN DON'T ASK FOR MORE LEAVE US ALONE AND LET US SEE TO OURSELVES FIRST BEFORE GIVING A DIME TO QUEBEC.
Infustructure money went to Quebec and still the strutures are in a disaster.
Charest is a liberal, right, well, most likely he is keeping money for himself and liberal party of canada or for that matter, the Bloc. That too should be checked out.
If the Quebec media like the LA PRESSE AND OTHER QUEBEC MEDIA don't want to do the job of finding and or investigating where all the billions of dollars are going into or how it is used. YOU, CC and other blogsphers will have to do the job.
I do not think that you and I want to be taken for a ride by Quebec for their own pleasure.
Quebec uses the 'threat'game, "DON'T give Quebec the billions they want you don't get their votes."
It is amusing to hear the Bloc and Charest bitch and complain, they are so deep in debt of their own than instead of been humble for less money they throw the threat game-no votes and I say "who cares."
The small-c fiscal, social and judicial conservative that Conservative Party members misguidedly thought they were voting for as our leader in 2002 would, under no circumstance, tolerate the country to return to a colossal, superfluous 30 plus billion dollar deficit which will undeniably not be short term and could do more harm than good. Anyone who believes that this deficit will be transitory has no sense of history. History validates how quickly so-called “temporary” spending programs are converted into the permanent financial structure paid for by enduring tax increases.
Rather than accepting Obama’s moronically socialistic claim that “only the government can break the vicious cycles crippling the economy”, the small-c fiscal conservative that we understood we had elected would know that a country can not spend its way out of a recession; and therefore would permit the free market to heal itself. Japan tried to spend its way out of its recession in the 90s and only ended up with a great deal of debt problem and a lost decade of economic growth. Fiscal conservatives know that if additional spending was the solution we wouldn’t be in this recession disarray since comrade Harper’s government is spending more than any preceding government. A veritable small-c conservative would recollect that after FDR had spent $20 billion in his disastrous first two terms, which doubled the USA total deficit, he failed to lessen the unemployment rate to much under 20%. If Canada had a small-c conservative PM he would recall the history of Keynesianism, through to its catastrophic expedition by U.S. presidents Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt.
A fiscal conservative PM would know that there is a finite number of dollars to be spent by either the private sector or by government. He also is aware that all non-socialistic studies categorically substantiate that private sector spending is immeasurably more beneficial than government spending. Another aspect of deficit spending philosophy that a genuine fiscal conservative PM would notify his people is that deficit spending means that the government of the day is stealing money from our grandchildren and future generations who will be inflicted with massive taxes to pay for today’s superfluous, colossal spending.
The genuine conservative we sought would slash wasteful, profligate and peripheral billions from the $230 billion Federal budget. The Fraser Institute reports that a “recent study by European Central Bank economists found approximately 25 per cent waste in Canada’s public sector.” As an economist he knows that permanent tax cuts are more effective market place healers than government spending, and, therefore a small-c fiscal conservative would repossess dollars from the current, obese budget for tax cuts. As Don Drummond, chief economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank explained: “You have to marry [the permanent tax cut] up with a much tighter spending regime over the medium term.” To acquire tax cutting dollars the conservative we thought we had elected would expedite across the board cuts to all program spending, cut million of dollars of improvident foreign aid that ends up in dictators’ banks accounts, eradicate ineffectual programs, place an absolute freeze on all government hiring, sell government assets, close worthless crown corporations ( specifically the far-left bias CBC), and eliminate direct corporate welfare. He would also save hundreds of millions of dollars by diminishing immigrant levels by 33% for the next three years. He would recognize that tax dollars are not government dollars, but taxpayers own money; therefore he would apply those resuscitate tax dollars to retroactively lower all levels of personal income taxes for 2008 and beyond, cut payroll taxes, corporate taxes and capital gain taxes which would put dollars into the hands of people who would immediately spend it and expedite the market place healing process. A fiscal conservative would also allow business to immediately expense new capital purchases. The cut in capital gains taxes and corporate tax cuts would attract foreign investments which is required to end this recession and allow the economy to expand. On the monetary side, a small-c conservative would welcome and encourage the Bank of Canada’s shift to lower the bank rate to 0.5%
The most interesting aspect of Harper’s tax cuts will be the actual amount of personal tax cut, as opposed to the amount of tax credits to people who don’t actually pay any personal income tax and, therefore, do not warrant a personal income tax rebate. For these people a tax credit is simply a welfare payment, not a tax cut. People maintain that if these people are working they forfeit pay-roll taxes and therefore deserve a tax rebate. Fine; but give them a cut in their pay-roll taxes rather than a welfare tax credit. Also, pay-roll tax cuts are cheaper for the government to expedite since checks do not have to be printed and mailed.
The structure of his deficit package will be a sign of just how far to the left our Prime Minister is willing to intervene in the economy with his new, far-left economics. At the very least, Harper must incorporate sunset legislation in his budget bill that stipulate that the government, after two quarters of positive GDP growth, will immediately begin to pay down this new debt in a very brief, overtly stated, explicit duration. Hopefully his negligent and thoughtless intervention won’t be too inclusive; but don't count on it! Harper’s abandonment of conservative ideology, and his plunge to the far- left by bailing out the auto unions, and creating a unnecessary, credulously massive deficit are illustrations that legitimate small-c fiscal, social and judicial conservatives are not represented in his Conservative Party.
In 2002 when we thought we were electing a small-c fiscal, social and judicial conservatives we should have paid more intention to what Tom Flanagan would later write in his book, Harper’s Team: "Some socially conservatives constituency presidents and councils remained skeptical of Harper”. As it turned out it was not only the social conservatives who should have been skeptical of Harper.
--machiavelli
I see where you are coming from.
I will try to meet your challenge and see what can be found about the money handed over to the province of Quebec, let's say, since 1993 -- in relation to the amount of income taxes they pay.
I'll be sure to post my findings.
Machiavelli, thank you for your detailed comment.
While I agree there are dangers to such a deep federal deficit, I think part of your argument neglects the fact that we are still under a minority Conservative government.
The waste in the public sector is definitely a good place to seek solutions. And Harper has already been under fire for some of the program cuts which happened through this Strategic Review process. (Think only of the Arts funding "fiasco".)
They cannot be expected to act as a majority, and while many hardcore small-c conservatives like yourself see him as bending much too far backwards in trying to accommodate the Canadian political mainstream. However, I do believe Harper holds the same ideals as you and many others in mind.
But he is an incrementalist, an approach which will yield more success than a sudden attack to what many see as "entitlements". If he were to take such hasty measures, we would surely kiss any hopes of further conservative governance goodbye.
I would rather see the Conservatives bend a bit, according to the times, then be stuck with 13 more years of Liberal stronghold.
What I find interesting is that the MSM has yet to recover the missing millions stolen by the liberal party yet they are quick to harp all over the prime minister for the excessive spending and as opposing parties and MSM keep saying "mis managing the economy".
Strange words shall I say, especially from the MSM which proves to us that they really not interested in canada or the canadian people far less to hammer the liberals for stealing billions of dollars for their pleasure when that stolen can be used today at this critical time.
The liberals are not interested in our pain as they pointed out a while back that they are.
The pain the liberals are feeling is theirs; they see the prime minister spending to areas where the liberals stole and made DRASTIC CUTS too. for example. The most vital areas where the liberals decides to cut from; then to say they have created a surplus and a eight year balance budget was from . MILITARY, HEALTHCARE, EDUCATION, PAYMENTS TO PROVENCES, INFUSTRUCTURE..........to name a few.
Where did the 'DRASTIC CUTS' monies GO TOO-you guessed it-into the liberal party, and from those monies from "drastic cuts areas, the liberals created their wealth at the backs of canadians. what's humiliating is that they have the audacity to raise taxes. Many provinces suffered to lack of funds etc.
Today's date, not a penny was returned.
Had the military, infustructure, healthcare education and transfere payments were not cut from then, the situation and the brunt of those expenses will not be faced by the PMSH today.
The liberals' reasons to make those DRASTIC CUTS was because-get this-Mulroney left them with a deficit-words which the liberal still preach and live by.
And for all of the liberals corruption thievery the PMSH is being blamed for it.
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