Gov’t still bloated despite slight budget pinch
By Eric Duhaime ,QMI Agency
In a few hours, federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty will table his 2012-13 budget.
The Conservative government is expected to cut $7-8 billion in spending, which corresponds to 8-10% of all expenditures except direct transfers to provinces and individuals.
So mark this date on your calendar. If the Conservatives keep their word, their first real budget as a majority government could be the beginning of an important new cycle in Canada’s history. Last year’s budget doesn’t count since it was first tabled in a minority Parliament before it was finally adopted after the May 2 election.
Over the past 60 years, all Canadian governments have slowly and inexorably implemented a massive welfare state. No matter what the speech of the day was, our elected o cials never stopped feeding the obese ogre.
Let’s keep in mind, however, that today’s cuts are very small and almost insignificant for many of us. As Filip Palda of the Montreal Economic Institute rightly pointed out earlier this week, even with this year’s measures, the federal budget will increase by $7 billion by 2014-15.
We are far from the doomsday scenario painted of our unionists and other socialists who predict the end of our social programs.
In fact, Flaherty is barely reducing the speed of growth of an overweight bureaucracy.
Since the arrival of Stephen Harper as prime minister, there are 32,000 extra bureaucrats at the federal level alone.
Today’s budget might just be the long-awaited turning point, the beginning of them end of a ballooning bureaucracy.
Politicians and public servants have been working for months to present the framework of a new vision of our state to us, a state that is no longer our nanny.
Decreasing the size of the monster is a much more difficult task than continuing to spend what we don’t have and pushing our debt onto the backs of our children and grandchildren.
All Conservatives need to stay firm, committed to their principles and to those who elected them to manoeuvre such a U-turn.
Their current approach is quite balanced and moderate. Ottawa is not on the eve of becoming a ghost city.
Nobody will be asked to pack his or her personal belongings and leave their public office for good later this afternoon. No one will be denied access to a hospital or a school tomorrow morning.
Canadian taxpayers just cannot afford to fulfil the insatiable appetite of the public service and we simply need to reduce the speed at which our government keeps spending.
Starting now, the pressure on Harper’s team to backtrack will increase. e smear campaignwill be set in motion.
The harbingers of the apocalypse will cry out. All the lobbies that feed at the trough of the state will feel threatened.
Don’t be surprised if CBC talks about “BLACK THURSDAY! ” on The National tonight . Some well - fed dependents will do everything they can to protect their privileges.
But the more they scream, the better your wallet will feel. Summer might ¬ finally be coming, my friends!