Don't Buy This Car

It's the biggest open secret in Ottawa: the government specifically designed its budget to bring about its own defeat. No sooner had it been released than Jim Flaherty was on the tube saying he would not accept any amendments. So, it wasn't really all that serious a document anyway; it was rather an election pamphlet. This is what Frank Carlucci meant when he said, "the budget evolved from a management tool into an obstacle to management."We are faced with some of the most serious times in our economic life as a nation and what we got in the budget was a little here, a little there, but little of substance anywhere. People who elected me deserve to know why I am against this budget, so here are some of the issues for me.

• I got elected in my riding in part to act as a good steward of our natural environment; this budget offered virtually nothing on fighting carbon emissions, protecting our inland waterways, or developing the green jobs of the future in environmental technology.
• There was nothing in this budget for affordable housing. In fact, there was less. The present housing agreement with the feds was on a three-year term that is about to sunset. That provision hasn't been extended, which means less for housing than we have now.
• Despite two major reports released in the House and the Senate in the last two years on poverty, there is nothing in this budget to address the growing gap between the rich and the poor or the rise in the occurrence of child poverty.
• While the government claimed to be looking out for seniors, it placed nothing in the budget regarding pension reform. People were expecting it but it just wasn't there. Future security for our seniors remains in doubt.
• The subject of jobs received little recognition in this budget. In fact the document revealed that the jobless rate is likely to remain high for years to come and then offered nothing to deal with it. With stimulus ending, the construction and public sector numbers will begin to stagnate. It will remain around 7% for the next few years, with the real unemployment rate, especially among students, driving the real number far higher.
• Speaking of students, where was the assistance for students crippled under tuition costs? Every party, including the government, has been saying Canada needs to invest in its keen young minds of tomorrow - something that was overlooked in the budget document itself. I live in a university and community college town; don't expect me to roll over on this one.
• Repeatedly since I have been in Ottawa we have been reminded of the deep need for EI reform, especially for Ontario, where only 34% of its citizens qualify for EI while other provinces are over 50%. Ontario got a bad deal from this budget.
• Immigration settlement has been crying for reform for years, but in this budget, nada.
• Seniors on the Guaranteed Income Supplement will get roughly a dollar a day more with this budget at a time when a large proportion of low-income seniors can't even afford heat for their homes or food for their tables.

These are substantive files and issues that will affect our economy for decades to come. But the budget was never designed to engage those issues. With significant new rulings about to come down on the corruption of the government, the need was there to get into an election quickly before more of the sleaze leaked into the press. And so a budget was drafted that would accomplish three things: 1) offer paltry little to the opposition parties so that an accommodation couldn't be found and an election deferred; 2) get to the polls before further corruption charges would be announced and the Auditor General could release her report on the remarkably extravagant $1 billion dollars spent on the G8/G20 summits (the same amount of money that could have at-risk seniors across the country out of poverty); and 3) dazzle the electorate with baubles to entice them to support the government.Well, I can't. I wanted to, but I got elected to tackle some of the greatest issues of our age and the remedial actions required to deal effectively with such challenges are not in this budget. It's not a partisan thing for me, nor some kind of ideological blind alley I have placed myself in. It's about Canadians needing to adjust the new realities now facing our country and its productivity. We have to sign a new national healthcare deal in two years time, and given the new poll that says healthcare is the uppermost issue in the minds of citizens, how could this budget have missed it. But, again, that wasn't its purpose.Carlucci was right - the budget is no longer an effective guide into our challenging future but rather an obstacle to the very health of our nation. Surely those who voted for me didn't want to watch me fight for a dollar a day for seniors, high tuition costs, or no healthcare planning. We are in a time of significant national and international adjustments, where new economies will have to be smarter and more adaptive, and where our people must discover new ways of productivity and competitiveness. This budget failed that smell test.These are only the domestic challenges we face; I've left out the challenges and costs required for us to be true international players. The feds just offered you a deal on a car. Sure, the tires are bare, the fenders dented and there's a knock in the engine, but you should hear its sound system! We're going to require something far more robust to propel us into an unknown economic and social future.