Once more the Canadian parliament has been downplayed by the Harper Conservatives. Even as simple an announcement as the date of bringing down the next budget is moved away from Ottawa. It was moved to a Toronto factory where people toil at sewing machines, assembling winter jackets for a garment company.
The company is known as Canada Goose—which is American owned—and has been subject to controversy for its methods of obtaining its fur trim. It provided a cynical backdrop for the announcement by Finance Minister Joe Oliver that the 2015 federal budget will be delivered to Canadians on April 21. You could tell from the bored looks of the sewing machine operators that they must be paid on piece work and Joe Oliver was taking the bread from their mouths in more ways than one.
But it also shows how little the Conservatives think of parliament and it was another excellent reason to turf them from office when we go to the polls. The people who have to be aware of the budget date are the people in parliament. The people in parliament care. The rest of us are interested but are in no rush. And yet, Oliver makes the announcement on the day before a long weekend and nobody supposedly gets a chance to comment on his insult to parliament.
When Oliver sat down to his pesach seder this past Friday evening, he could give the same speech to the child’s question as he gave the garment workers. (In the Jewish beginning of Passover with the special Friday night dinner, the youngest child, who can understand the question, ritually asks what is different about this occasion.)
Rather than just make the announcement at Canada Goose, Oliver went on to tell the media what will be in his budget. He announced again the usual line that there is a surplus and that the goodies already announced and implemented before parliament had even agreed will become authorized in his budget. Goodies such as income splitting for the wealthy and child tax credits for those who do not need them are of course included.
Where the budget really matters is in the provincial legislatures that have held up releasing their budgets as some of the basic transfers from the federal government have to be confirmed before the provinces can announce their budget plans. Oliver has been delaying this process with his dallying. The taxpayers end up being goosed by both levels of government.
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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry
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