Reboot Alberta

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Charest's Actions Show Quebec's Fiscal Imbalance is a Scam and a Sham

So Charest versions of overcoming the so-called fiscal imbalance is to take equalization money from the hard earned taxes paid by all Canadians and then using it - not to improve the level of government services to Quebecers as it is intended in the Constitution - but rather apply it to personal income tax cuts.

Quebec has a huge debt, spends more on social programs than Ontario and subsidizes everything from day care to university tuition at unsustainable levels and that do not provide effective outcomes. What does Charest do to get real about these chronic problems created by the parade of past provincial politicians…nothing! He is using federal equalization funds that are intended constitutionally to improve government services in health, education and so forth and instead using them for pure electoral political purposes with a tax break to boost his election chances. Disgusting!

Other bloggers have picked up on this and have pointed out that based on this cynical tax cutting action by Charest one can only conclude that since Quebec did not need the money for remedying any fiscal imbalance- it it fair therefor to conclude the "so-called" fiscal imbalance must not exist.

When Flaherty was Harris’ Minister of Finance in Ontario, that province did the same thing with federal funds. They took federal funding grants intended for improved government services and used it for tax breaks - and then borrowed the money to improve services...not arguing they too have a "fiscal imbalance" because of high debt. Charest has been taught this trick by a past master of obfuscation. Character and integrity are lacking in these politicians when they will do such crass and conniving things with the better purposes and stated intentions of the Canadian taxpayer's money.

Prime Minister Harper, a few questions sir! Wasn’t this type of pandering and political manipulation between Ottawa and Quebec City the original reason the Reform Party split from Mulroney and started in the first place? Has nothing changed except your opportunism and thurst for power sir? How long do you think you can alienate your base in the west and take advantage of, on one hand, and concurrently try to buy-off, on the other hand, the hard working, just-trying-to-get-ahead- middle-class Canadian swing voter with such disingenuous politics?

Good government is always good politics sir. The opposite is rarely true!

10 comments:

  1. Anonymous5:42 pm

    Well said.

    I am surprised that Albertans are leting Harper do this without a peep. We are essentially subsidizing harper and Charest' ambitions in Quebec.

    In addition the federal budget ws poor for Alberta.

    If this was a Liberal budget the Liberal haters would be going bezerk.

    Where's the outrage now. Are Albertans so shallow that we have become Conservative boosters at any cost and Liberal haters without any thought?

    What a sorry state of affairs for our province.

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  2. Anonymous6:48 pm

    These are amazing words coming out of Ken - a liberal attacking another liberal. A liberal attacking a federalist voice in Quebec. This is consistent with the fact that several Quebec MPs are going to be forced by the stubborn Dion to vote against a budget that largely helps Quebec.

    Ken, you should worry largely about the divisions in the LPC before attempting to illustrate those in the CPC. Case in point is the removal of an MP for voting in favour of the budget, despite the fact that it largely helps his constituents and Cdns in general. Dion is continually demonstrating that he is a control freak and cannot accept any attacks on his leadership.

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  3. Anonymous11:24 pm

    eric - your comments and context in this comment above deserve some reflection and a reply. I have read your comments on this blog for few weeks now and have to say that you know your stuff and you have become an avatar in my mind for the current Harper Conservative political and governance persective.

    That perspective and view of politics in particular is so far removed from appreciating the plight and anger that people feel towards their governments these days. This buy-off budget that the Harper-Cons have floated this week is so emblematic of this Party's approach that the politics of power will always trump a more meaningful concern about providing governance for the common good.

    The way you guys position and respond to serious issues show you just do not understand what citizens want and how disappointed they are in you when their trust is betrayed. Your minority government is due to the citizens of Canada feeling the last straw of a betrayal of their trust by the old Liberal party due to Adscam.

    Citizens want to respect their elected representatives and want to come to know them to be good and worthy people who are committed to the common good and capable of doing something positive to those ends.

    That respect goes largely undeserved in most instances of our current crop of elected representatives, especially, but not exclusively, in the Conservative ranks. You can count the exceptions on both hands in the House of Commons these days.

    Citizens get angry and indifferent (until election time) when their real-life concerns get shunted aside by sport-metaphor politics when all they see is the trained seal message-massaged PMO authorized Conservative MPs spewing out the sound bites on the nightly television news.

    To you and your kind politics is somewhere between amateur theatre and professional sport. It is role playing and rehearsed technique by mediocre actors. You guys are like a chippy hockey team who lacks much talent and who would rather take a cheap shots in the corners instead of developing a serious set of skills and becoming really proficient and appreciated for how well you play the real game.

    It is not like you present yourselves as real people in your real lives trying to really do the right thing. It is staged and artificial with you actors/players hoping, that with your "performance" we citizens will suspend our disbelief and "go along with you guys" as you make the "drama" unfold or unravel before our very eyes.

    We know that kind of politician runs throughout the Harper government They are not authentic nor genuine. They are a mere representations and artifices mouthing lines they have been trained to memorize but with no personal investment in the concepts they speak about. We sense that they neither own nor have they instilled the principles and purposes of their words into their own hearts.

    Then today we have YOUR Leader, but he is also OUR Prime Minister, take a contemptuously cheap shot in QP. He was questioning the Leader of the Official Opposition's personal concern for Canadian troops, claiming it was less than his concern for the Taliban.

    That is not just politics as usual nor a cute quip or clever turn of phrase designed for the nightly television news media clip. That is not even just mean spirited.

    That was deplorable behaviour and the accusation was beneath the dignity of the office of Prime Minister. It illustrates a character flaw in the person currently holding that office. I can only hope he is there on a temporary basis.

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  4. Anonymous9:10 am

    I wrote about this yesterday -- Albertans may be quiet now, but there will be war over this.

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  5. Anonymous9:16 am

    Come on now, Ken, your remarks about "actors, role-playing, staging, etc." also apply to the Liberals, especially today: Ignatieff is as phoney as can be (there is nothing genuine or authentic about him, except his mental problems), and Dion, well, he's a joke.

    The problem is that right now, it's mental basket cases and jokes that we have in Ottawa, right across the board, and voters really don't know where to turn to anymore.

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  6. HI Werner - I do not disagree - this problem runs across the board...it is just more critical in the case of the Cons right now now because of the Harper agenda and he is government.

    I do not think Dion is a joke - he is the exact opposite of what we have seen in terms of actors and players. The superficial criticism of him are in the actor/player paradigmn...not of policy and substance. That is where we need the debate and conversation to occur.

    I think he is authentic and genuine and learning to be a leader and given 3.5 months on the job he is doing rather well.

    Harper has been in leadership political positions for 5 years. His Taliban shot yesterday shows he is may be lacking in the quality of character necessary to govern. That was not an unguarded moment - it was a planned media clip quote. Shameful as best. Beneath the dignity and responsibility of the office he holds.

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  7. Anonymous7:38 am

    Anonoymous 5:42 am:

    Have you ever heard of issues linkage?

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  8. Anonymous9:33 am

    Anonymous at 7:38 - no I have not heard of issues linkage ;-}...does it have anything to do with honesty, integrity and accuracy?

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  9. Anonymous7:20 pm

    Not sure what to say about being your aviator of the CPC. Ken, I did not like this “buy-off” budget either but I can swallow it believing that the CPC requires a majority before it implements fundamental changes.

    As for the Taliban statement, I think Harper is taking a page out of Klein’s book (which may not be a great idea but we’ll see!). Everyone in the room and most ordinary hard-working and rational Canadians were thinking the same thing – why have the Liberals devoted hours and days on chastising the government on the 4 detainees who attempted to kill our soldiers and innocent Afghans instead of focusing on the safety of our soldiers and the success of the mission. The LPC are living in a bubble (similar to their belief that we can meet the Kyoto targets in 2 years by snapping our fingers). I obviously respect human rights and the Geneva Convention, but Minister O’Connor admitted he made a mistake (admissions are rare for politicians) and illustrated how he intends to fix the situation. Instead, the liberals call this veteran an “arm’s dealer” who should resign and calls our military commander a “prop”. That is what I call mean-spirited and they should be ashamed for such statements.

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  10. Anonymous1:04 pm

    It is "avatar" eric, not “aviator” - look it up!
    Please give me the sources on the "arm's dealer" and "prop' comment allegations.

    Your comment once again reinforces the fact that you are missing my point. By doing so you are reinforcing my concern. A quid pro quo rebuttal of inappropriate political behaviour or an equivalency argument as justification for a leadership character flaw does not make for good governance.

    It is not about you or the CPC, the LPC or the leaders as such. It is about how do citizens decide democratically how to elect a good government? The choices we are being offered in party platforms, political values and personal behaviours of politicians are so substandard and insufficient for the tasks at hand.

    Harper is not the only leader to be found wanting in wisdom and judgment. He is just the most overtly unacceptable individual on the national stage right now. Chrétien used to be, and he was preceded by Mulroney as the most overtly unacceptable choice in their days…but so what.

    We need to do better in governance and politics in absolute terms - not relativistic terms.

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