To the Editor:
Damning reports from the Auditor-General are raising tough questions about the fiscal and economic credibility of the Harper government.
Among many other things, the A-G disclosed $29-billion in delinquent taxes, search-and-rescue deficiencies that put lives at risk, multi-million-dollar sloppiness in administering Employment Insurance payments, and more than $3-billion unaccounted for in security spending.
Also last week, neither the Defence Minister nor the Minister of Public Works could explain why this government appears to be paying 10 times more than other countries for just the design work on its new Arctic patrol ships.
The Conservatives also had to admit the mess they've made of the Temporary Foreign Workers program, aggravating employers, employees and especially the jobless and the under-trained.
And information began to emerge about the last four Conservative budgets imposing hidden tax increases, especially hitting middle-class Canadians, to the tune of billions-upon-billions of dollars.
All of this is on-top of a special audit report last year about the F-35 fighter-jet boondoggle, which involved massive costs close to $50-billion, non-competitive untendered contracting, duplicitous book-keeping, and a deeply troubled aircraft. The Parliamentary Budget Officer characterized the government's management of that project as incompetent and deceitful.
What's surprising is that some people are surprised at these revelations.
Remember in Opposition, Mr. Harper and his colleagues were advocates of some pretty bad economic advice. They wanted to scrap the Canada Pension Plan. They favoured a more US-like banking system for Canada with less regulation and big bank mergers. They also wanted Ottawa to cut deeper into transfer payments to provinces.
Once in office, the Harper Conservatives immediately over-spent by three-times the rate of inflation. They eliminated Contingency Reserves and Prudence Factors from federal budgeting, exposing taxpayers to greater financial risks.
At the same time, they killed income trusts, thus vaporizing about $25-billion from the retirement savings of two-million middle-class Canadians. They also experimented with high-risk 40-year home mortgages which added substantially to the heavy debt-loads now burdening many Canadian households. Such dumb decisions have long-term consequences.
In barely two years, the Harper Conservatives squandered a decade of Liberal surpluses, putting Canada back into deficit again BEFORE, not because of, the recession which arrived in late 2008. And they haven't balanced the books ever since.
Mr. Harper failed to anticipate that recession, just as he has failed to meet every one of his fiscal projections, while adding more than $150-billion to the federal debt.
It should be no surprise that there's more trouble now accumulating.
Ralph Goodale, MP, Wascana, SK.
