02-03-09 / Ramble

There is a great saying that is you should never question a mans integrity, only question his actions. Anyone who is a thoughtful follower of Canadian politics can understand that Harper is not the devil incarnate. He is simply a conservative, and a very devout one at that, and his principles clash sometimes violently with the other parties in the House. He is running for the hills with this budget, and his whole team is on his tail. I think everyone can agree that Canada has had enough of Stephen Harper, whether you are a conservative or a socialist, he is divisive and bad for our country.

The budget has alot of great things in it that are going to be very good for Canada. But there are not-so good things as well, and even though it is pessimistic to obsess over the bad things, that is really what we need to be talking about. He didnt do anything for EI except extend the time-frame for benefits, but he didnt eliminate the 2wk wait at the start, and coupled with the backlogs that can be expected now, benefits might not be received for a month or more. He didnt make it easier or more affordable for students to goto University or College, so that we can have a ready-to-go workforce in the next 2-5 years. He did give money to infrastructure spending, but failed to recognize (either by ignorance or by design) that our Cities are totally broke and cant even begin to match the funds of the Provinces + Federal Gov't.

I agree that the only thing left to do at this point was to pass the budget and use some leverage to get in some other ideas into the budget - and Mike's Liberals dropped the ball on that one. Not only that, they wasted time stipulating their dumb ammendment to get '3 updates' from the Tories on how everything is going. The Liberals knew that the budget was medicocre and as one talking head put it, a mile wide an inch deep, but did very little about it. At least Layton and Duceppe had the good fortune to be reasonably sure the Budget wouldnt live or die on their votes and spoke out.

Hopefully we can trust the Government to deliver on its promises here, because God know that the Liberals wont force an election with their poor-credit flow, and honestly its a big waste of my money. We would have a properly functional Parliament with a different, and less divisive Cabinet. Progressive policy and a destruction of the regressive Reform platform that the Harperites have been operating on.

 

Thomas RB Miller