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John Robson (hats off) shoots dead centre at the federal government’s Keynesian deficit financing, citing the CTF’s DebtClock.ca .  Listen to Robson on CFRA HERE.

Watch this short video by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and pass it on. Email it to your friends, share it on Facebook and post it on your blog.

Maxime Bernier has sent the Bloc Quebecois and the usual suspects into an expected wild stupor over his letter to La Press counselling against alarm-ism on the global warming debate.  Bernier’s earlier speech on the wisdom of deficit financing was a splash of cold water on official Ottawa, but pales in comparison to what can be expected from the other opposition parties, the mainstream media and special-interest groups. The pressure from the PMO or his own party to ‘retract’ or  ‘clairfy’ his statement out of this blowback may prove to be the most serious.

If Mad Max manages to stand up through the storm that is likely to blow his way, many disenfranchised Canadians who do not right now see their champion in Parliament may begin to look his way as their voice inside the House.

Researchers at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) have busted the Royal Canadian Mint for the cost of its investigation into $15.3 million of “missing gold”.  Using Access to Information requests, the CTF found that the total cost of the investigation – which concluded that the gold was in fact not missing – was $1,374,846.

Earlier reports cited the auditing costs to be closer to $360,000; however the total cost for financial services, reviews and reconciliation was significantly more.

Summary Table from CTF Access to Information Request

Cross-Posted at Taxpayer.com

In 1993, 51 new Reformers stormed into Ottawa with a mission to change the place (Deborah Grey was already elected in a by-election).  Despite never winning government in their Reform incarnation, the party arguably did change Ottawa in several respect, but over the years the zeal of those fights has largely worn off. Think deficits.

At the request of both the Globe and Mail and the Canadian Press, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation provided pension calculations for the 11 remaining MPs from Reform’s class of 93′.  These MPs are no more to blame for the sweetheart deal that is the MP pension regime than any other of their colleagues, yet they have an opporunity to resurrect this fight and set an example as they reign in public sector unions as a hopeful and needed part of tackling the deficit.

Led by these 11 MPs – which includes the Prime Minister and one Liberal (Keith Martin) – parliamentarians should set an example for public pension reform by 1st) moving from a defined benefit plan to a defined contribution plan and 2) significantly lessening the generosity of these plans.

You can just smell the bacon with the latest pork that’s been dumped into Quebec by its regional development agency.  The feds spent $1.6 million there on snow grooming machines.  David Akin of CanWest is reporting that “all the clubs to receive money this week are based in or maintain trails through the ridings of two Conservative cabinet ministers: Denis Lebel and Jean-Pierre Blackburn. Lebel is the minister whose department writes the cheques; Blackburn used to run that department.”

Of course the complaints of some will be “where’s my fair share?” but the reality is that “your fair share” as a snowmobile club or company that maintains trails is what you as a private entity are willing to invest in them. That these machines were purchased for the re-election stimulation of a few politicians in Quebec is only half of the problem.  That the Conservative government feels that it can better make economic decisions than private companies and investors on the ground is just as disturbing.

To add insult to injury, opposition condemnations of the former ring hollow as they gladly engage in pork-politics whenever they have the chance. On the latter, they openly encourage the myth that they in Ottawa can make sufficiently informed investment and micro-economic decisions.

A pox on all your houses of parliament.

Photo from Sugar Mountain Farm

Stockwell Day has set the Ottawa hive abuzz with air of spending cuts and trims to the civil service. This is welcome news as the Conservatives will have no choice but to reduce program spending below what it is expected to reach after “stimulus” funds have been fully thrown away come the end of 2010-11.

The only numbers to emerge thus far are limiting civil service wage increases to 1.5%. While a 1.5% increase in wages is certainly an accomplishment when compared with the government’s average 6% increase in total program spending since 2003, it will only be effective in any sense if it is accompanied by across-the-board freezes in programs that the government wishes to maintain, and significant cuts and even eliminations in other areas.

Those “other areas” might include phasing out the near $15 billion in annual equalization payments, or $5 billion in the low hanging fruit of corporate welfare (pre-bailouts) that the CTF has specifically identified in its Deficit Action Plan.

cross-posted at taxpayer.com

Minister of Apologizing for Arts “Cuts” James Moore is upset with Vancouver 2010 organizers for not including enough French in the opening ceremonies, despite it being used as the first language for narrating events. Bilingualism bureaucrat Graham Fraser agreed whole-heartedly, being the objective public servant that he is. No mention needed of Jean Charest, who never misses an opportunity to play the nationalist and victim cards in order to prove to his provinces more excitable advocates that he is actually one of them.

Nobody argues that there should not have been French used in the opening ceremonies, but at some point our leaders begin to sound like Dan Aykroyd in Canadian Bacon.

Check out these two famous scenes, and please accept my appologies for posting anything by this film’s director.

65% of Canadians support spending cuts to tax hikes or continued large deficits according to a new CBC poll, not accounting for those who either did not express an opinion or did not know. In this vein, 20% supported higher taxes to balance the budget and just under 15% supported the continuation of large deficits. (For results that include undecideds click here).

This is clear evidence that the Conservative government’s  fear of death over the outrage that would accompany any restraint in spending is unfounded.  Of courses there will be the usual yelping from clients of the welfare state about why they should be excluded from any such pruning, but far more Canadians support spending cuts than even support the Conservatives.

Of those 65% (or 46% if you include undecideds) there will be those who support cutting spending, so long as you cut in areas that do not directly affect them.  For example, seniors may support cuts to corporate welfare, but not to health-care.  An Executive at Bombardier or GM may have the opposite view while still supporting overall spending cuts.

The fact is that every one of us has our hands in the taxpayer grab-bag and we think that we are making off at someone else’s expenses. Its time for the Tories to show some real leadership and come forward with some of that same tough-love that helped to get the Liberals re-elected in the 1990s.  Being coy about slapping a few hands in the grab-bag didn’t help Mulroney in any case.

Watch this commercial that ran during the Superbowl this past Sunday and comment below how long it takes you to figure out if this is a parody or serious commercial.

First they came for the bottled water drinkers…