To the Editor:
Last week's federal budget liquidated 19,000 jobs. It gutted environmental protection procedures, reducing them to meaningless rubber-stamps. It down-loaded federal responsibilities onto Provinces. And it sharply reduced future old-age pensions for everyone under the age of 54.
Conservative Finance Minister Flaherty says all this is good for Canadians. Can you believe him? Examine his record:
Before coming to Ottawa, Mr. Flaherty was a Minister in the right-wing provincial governments of Mike Harris and Ernie Eaves in Ontario. (So were Tony Clement and John Baird). They left that province with a $6-billion debt and environmental travesties like Walkerton's water.
Later, campaigning for election federally, Mr. Flaherty pledged NEVER to tax retirement savings in "Income Trusts". But once in power, he imposed a brutal 31.5 per cent Conservative tax-on-trusts, slashing the savings of two million Canadians by $25-billion.
He increased federal spending by three-times the rate of inflation, while eliminating all contingency reserves and prudence factors that previously protected Canada against adverse global risks.
Less than three years after inheriting (from Liberals) a strong, job-generating economy, consistently balanced budgets and annual surpluses of $13-billion, Mr. Flaherty put Canada back into deficit -- BEFORE there was any recession to blame.
He failed to see that recession coming in late 2008, though it was obvious to the rest of the world. And once it arrived, he wrongly prescribed severe cutbacks as the remedy, and foolishly predicted four more surplus budgets.
Then a month later, he reversed himself, ushering in a helter-skelter spending spree, the biggest annual deficits and the highest federal debt in Canadian history.
He concocted perverse EI rules to increase job-killing payroll taxes exactly when unemployment is worsening. He designed tax "credits" to favour only those who are better off - deliberately discriminating against low-income families.
On his watch, income inequality has deepened and the middle-class has stagnated.
Not a legacy to inspire confidence!
Ralph Goodale, MP, Wascana, SK.
