Vincent J. Curtis
23 Mar 2017
The pictures of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Finance
Minister Bill Morneau said it all. These
are men of pedigree and wealth, credentialed, and they wore fine suits. They are among the best and the brightest.
Their budget promised more and better housing, funding for
municipal transportation systems, for water infrastructure, new technology, and
new entitlement programs in child-care with the aim of increasing the number of
women in the workforce. They now measure
budget impacts with gender-based analyses.
They aim to eliminate inequalities of all kinds, to say nothing of the racism,
sexism, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, xenophobia and all the other
deplorable –isms and –ias that current plague Canadian society.
Meanwhile, the best and the brightest can’t balance the
budget. They can’t even hold to their
promises regarding deficit and debt made a mere 18 months ago.
The deficit this year runs triple what they expected less
than 18 months ago and consumes entirely their election promise of limits on
deficit finance of ten billion a year for three years. The economy is not growing as their deficit
finance projections forecasted.
Consequently, even the promise made 12 months ago of maintaining a
constant debt to GDP ratio won’t be met.
And they have no plans to get the deficit under control.
Money is being thrown away with both hands, but where is it
all going? The city of Hamilton is still
waiting on tens of millions for new buses and water infrastructure from last
year’s federal budget. Money is being
funnelled into the MUSH sector (municipalities, universities, schools, and
hospitals) but nothing seems to be coming out the other end. The billions spent on ‘skills development’
goes to administration of technical colleges.
Billions spent on innovation amounts to tax credits for existing
businesses.
Meanwhile, billions more is promised to be spent on the
fallacy of subsidizing child care, where working women pay other women to look
after their children for them so they can work.
One would think Canada had full employment and war-time pressures were
forcing the economy to desperately produce more.
And for all of this stimulus, the economy is not
growing. Alberta is no longer a federal
cash cow, and Ontario is crippled by the incompetent meddling of another group
of highly educated, credentialed, and well-dressed people who have cosmic
ambitions but can’t balance a budget.
The cost of electricity in Ontario is out of sight because the experts
with fine tastes chose to defeat global warming with windmills and solar
panels. Manufacturing entrepreneurship
is discouraged because the expert-entrepreneur is confronted with ruin should
he fall afoul of myriad environmental, labor, and other regulations at the
provincial and municipal levels.
Basic government functions are suffering. Postal service is in decline. Immigration policy is chaotic, make-shift,
and creating social problems. National
Defense is falling apart. We need to completely
rebuild the navy and the air force soon, and the government can’t seem to come
up with a program or even procure interim replacements.
The government is actively looking to burn up army readiness
at the rate of half a billion a year with some useless peacekeeping mission in
Mali, yet Russia continues to put pressure on the Ukraine and the Baltic
States, NATO could break up, and we may get dragged into another European war
because nobody in the west is building up deterrence.
The basic government competencies are failing, and our
elected officials pose as existentialists speaking about faux challenges over
which they have no control. Motion 103
condemns Islamophobia and systemic racism, yet the government maintains the
Indian Act, the Charter of Rights has special carve-outs for Aboriginals, and the
scale of Islamophobia is exacerbated by the government actively seeking Muslim
refugees in preference to Christians.
We have a Minister in charge of the Status of Women, and we
have no proof of effect of this ministry.
We have a minister in charge of democratic institutions, but other than
trying and failing to mess with ancient traditions we have no idea what this
ministry is for. We have a ministry of
innovation, science, and economic development, but other than direct a flow of
money, we have no proof of value of this ministry. We have a ministry of international
development and La Francophonie, and it is wonder why these responsibilities do
not fall under foreign affairs and international relations. We have a ministry of small business and
tourism even though these matters belong in a trade and commerce ministry and
largely are areas of provincial responsibility.
We have a ministry of families, children, and social development,
science, international trade, Canadian heritage, environment and climate
change.
The only things missing are ministries of virtue-signalling,
and bureaucratic expansion and employment.
Well-dressed, credentialed, wealthy, pedigreed, and pleasant
people can’t seem to balance a budget or ensure that the basic functions of
government are efficiently performed.
Instead, we get virtue-signalling and poses of philosopher-kings. That is the essential take-away from
Trudeau’s second budget.
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