21 Seats: Could Harper's PQ Investment Backfire?

Coincidentally, 21 is the margin of the Conservative victory over the Liberals in the 2006 election, and also, the number of Conservative ridings in Sasketchewan, and the Atlantic provinces.

Irritation is apparently growing among western and eastern provinces with the news that Jean Charest is already spending a huge chunk of his $2.2 billion budget windfall to lure voters by a $700 million tax cut.

(From today's National Post)

Keep in mind that this most desperate of premiers governs a province that debt-finances Canada's most unaffordable lifestyle. Yet Mr. Charest diverted the windfall given Quebec in this week's budget to a tax cut worth $750 per average Quebec family, buying votes using Ontario, Alberta and B.C. currency.

The galling spectacle of Mr. Charest stripping $700-million for tax reduction from his $2.2- billion haul just 24 hours after receiving word of the federal handout may well bring back Quebec-bashing as a Canadian heritage sport.

Stephen I'll say or do anything to get elected Harper enticed 12/14 Sasketchewan ridings to vote Conservative based on the promise made to Premier Lorne Calvert to exclude all non-renewable resources from the new equalization formula. He clearly misled Newfoundland and Labrador, and Sasketchewan to get elected. On Monday, he just invested in Quebec in order to form a majority government in the next election. But with Quebec on side, and Ontario for the most part liking this budget, which is what really counts, Harper's chances of shaking minority government status would be much greater. However, if Charest does not win the Quebec election, then there might again be a frenzied atmosphere of a separatist government promoting the Bloc, which will make it tougher for the Conservatives in the next federal election.

Also, Harper's image as a promise-breaker is getting a steady mention in political editorials in Canada.

From his article, "Dishonest Budget", Andrew Coyne had this to say:

The budget claims to have solved “the fiscal imbalance” -- a debatable claim about a debatable problem... Yet the Tories campaigned on a promise to exclude these revenues from the equalization formula, in their entirety.

A broken promise, right? Not according to the budget. Thanks to various add-ons and one-time payments, it claims, no province will be worse off under the 50% inclusion rate than it would be if resources were kept out entirely. This, it says, will “fulfill the Government’s commitment to fully exclude non-renewable natural resources revenues from the calculation of Equalization.” But it didn’t fully exclude them. It half-included them. It might have compensated provinces for breaking its promise, but it still broke the promise.

(from the Prince Albert Daily Herald) Deal, but no Deal

We don't think that promise was kept, and either should the electorate who sent Tories to Ottawa from 12 of our 14 seats. Those votes were cast, in part, on the basis of that commitment, and Monday's federal budget made it clear the assurance was not kept.

The tone of CBC and CTV journalists, especially just after the budget announcement, was, as it often is, snobbish, towards Newfoundland and Labrador. However, to this blogger, it seems to be changing, to one which is more serious about the weaknesses in the budget. This is due in large part to the fact that SK, NS have similiar concerns as NL, and NB and BC have reasons for disliking the budget as well.

It's not like Harper said just once that non-renewables were to be excluded from the new formula, he said it on many occasions, on video and in writing, to NL and SK. He condemned Paul Martin for trying to impose a cap on equalization. However, there was a gradual erosion of his commitment of his promise noted in Jan., 2006 by Premier Calvert, and throughout the rest of last year, so it was no surprise that he offered the 50% inclusion option.

Technically, NL still gets the benefit of the Atlantic Accord till 2012, and possibly another eight years, and in that time frame, a promise kept. But Harper is not deferring his promise/suggestion to exclude 100% of non-renewables, he is changing it on paper.

Danny Williams should, and as he said, will, focus on other economic and provincial issues. As we know there's enormous economic potential for the province, and equalization is no more a crutch for our province than it is for other "have-not" provinces. (see previous post on federal transfers)

Here's more Quebec food for thought

(National Post)

Quebec runs a nation-leading debt of $122-billion, which drains a staggering $7-billion in interest payments from general revenue every year.

The government provides a distinct society of $7 daily daycare, tuition fees a third of the Canadian average, child care allowances that can hit $2,091 a year for the first kid and top-ups for registered education savings plans all wrapped in thick layers of heavily unionized job protection.

Equalization Promise Not So Promising

If Sasketchewan Premier Lorne Calvert knew PM Harper was coming today he may have baked a wheat cake. Harper announced $1 billion worth of farm aid for Sasketchewan, but as Calvert said later on CTV news, the announcement was hastily arranged and members of his party did not know what was going to be announced. He was disappointed at the way this news was orchestrated, and said, Typically there is some discussion with farmers, and farm groups. He added that he had little detail of where the dollars were going to flow, and warned MPs were going to be held accountable if Harper's equalization promise was not kept.

At the press conference reporters asked Harper about equalization but he had little to say, except that the answer is coming soon. For weeks it's been bandied about that 50% of non-renewables would be removed from the new equalization formula. Sasketchewan has also made it known last year that there might be a political price to pay for reneging on that promise. In August, 2006, Saskatchewan Conservative caucus chair Brian Fitzpatrick wrote that it will cause no end of political difficulty in the next election.

The Sasketchewan Conservatives campaigned on the promise to exempt non-renewables, and they ended up with 12 out of 14 federal seats. It will be interesting to see if Harper has any other surprises in the budget on equalization, and if Danny and Lorne will really attempt to form an east-west political grid.

Scandals & Fiascos from Sea to Sea

As the Canadian union was just six years old, news of the first Canadian scandal was about to explode. In the summer of 1873 news broke that Sir John A. Macdonald and his Conservatives received a whopping $350,000 in campaign funds in exchange for a lucrative railway contract, Canadians were outraged.

Canada is a great country in so many ways, yet we are still evolving in areas of social equality, and democracy. However, the evolution of principle, ethics and honesty in politics has been slow, and has not caught on with every elected official. Newfoundland and Labrador has had scandals and fiascos before, but it is like other provinces of Canada who in recent years, and currently, have had politicians surrender to the chance to pocket more coin. Some things don't change much. Here are just some other Canadian examples of wastage and dishonesty in government:

Saskatchewan Tories in Fraud Scandal

Twelve members of Grant Devine's government in Saskatchewan, which was swept from office in 1991, were charged in relation to a scheme that defrauded taxpayers of more than $837,000.

There are some similiarities between this scandal and the still ongoing IEC scandal investigation in NL. The seeds of the controversy were planted in 1987, when Devine's caucus agreed to pool 25 per cent of the communications allowances that MLAs were entitled to receive from the legislature into a central account. The CROWN has alleged that some members of the Devine government signed expense allowance claims that were submitted to the legislature along with invoices from four shell companies set up by John Scraba, then the caucus communications director. Many of the invoices were for services never rendered, or for expenses that were illegitimate. After the invoices were approved by the legislature's finance offices, cheques were issued to the phoney companies. That money was then funnelled back to several caucus members and Scraba in the form of cash and merchandise.

Police were first alerted to the scam in July, 1991, when legislature clerk Gwenn Ronyk reported some suspicious invoices. The investigation received a break in April, 1992, when a Regina bank branch opened a safety deposit box after its registered owner failed to respond to a notification that the bank was moving. Inside the box were 150 $1,000 bills. The owner's name proved to be bogus, but his address was quite revealing: Room 203, Saskatchewan legislature, aka the Tory caucus office. After contacting other banks, police uncovered a second safety deposit box, under the same phoney name, that contained 90 $1,000 bills.

Perhaps the most explosive testimony came on Oct. 24, when another former caucus chairman, Myles Morin, told the court that Devine had approved a plan in 1985 to transfer $455,000 - an amount unrelated to the $837,000 fraud scheme - in surplus caucus funds into an investment account.

Eventually, more than a dozen former Conservative MLAs and party workers were convicted of robbing taxpayers in a bogus-expense scheme. Sadly in a much darker vein, former cabinet minister Jack Wolfe committed suicide in February, 1995, leaving behind a pregnant wife and three young children.

British Columbia's FastCat Fiasco

Also called the Fast Ferry Scandal was the name given to a political scandal in British Columbia during Glen Clark's tenure as Premier (1996-99). Hoping to revive BC's shipbuilding industry to some semblance of its past glory of the 20th century, Glen Clark's NDP government, refusing the advice of the BC Ferries corporation to lease a similiar type of ferry for trials, went ahead and constructed three vessels.

The project was originally set to cost $210 million, but due to various blunders by the government, BC Ferries, design bureaus, and the shipyards, it rose to almost $460 million and final delivery was almost 3 years behind schedule. A large part of the delay was due to the fact that the shipyards commissioned to construct the vessels had very little experience working with aluminum.

There were also significant problems like high fuel consumption, little outside deck space for passengers, and loading the ferries took longer.

In 2003 the ferries went up for sale. They were auctioned of to the Washington Marine Group for $19.4 million. If that wasn't enough salt in the wound, there this was: the same company offered to purchase the fleet for $60 million prior to the auction.

Alberta 2005: Worst land deal deal ever

Inside sweet land deals got some civil servants in trouble and cost the government of Alberta. Ethics commissioner Donald Hamilton cleared Environment Minister Guy Boutilier of influencing an Alberta Social Housing Corporation decision to sell 231 acres of Fort McMurray land for affordable housing to the Timberlea Joint Venture Consortium. The consortium got the land at a price set for 158 acres. Not only was the deal sweet, but beneficiaries include Boutilier’s personal friend Tim Walsh, and other individuals who NDP critic Ray Martin says have contributed $14,000 to Boutilier’s campaigns since he became an MLA. To top things off, the $35,000 per acre price was based on 1990 land values. The government lost at least $2.5 million in potential revenue on the sale.

Ontario's Hydro One Scandal
Here's an excerpt from the above link

Reports say Ontario's publicly owned utility paid out $5.6 million to former advisors to Premiers Mike Harris and Ernie Eves.

The players involved in the Hydro One affair were key insiders during the 8-year Tory reign at Queen's Park: Tom Long (former Harris advisor), Paul Rhodes (Tory campaign communications director), Leslie Noble (co-chair of the Tory election campaign), and Michael Gourley (a reported advisor and confidant of Eves).

What's particularly unseemly about the Hydro One affair is that, many of the individuals involved are the very ones who concocted the "Common Sense Revolution" which hypocritically preached fiscal restraint, cuts to social assistance, and scaling back public services. This resulted in a Tory government that inflicted brutal cuts to the poor, ransacked health care, and created a "crisis" in education.

Ontario December, 2006
Millions wasted on gov't credit cards: Ont. AG
Excerpt from CTV News

A number of Ontario's public sector workers can't account for millions in charges on taxpayer-funded credit cards, the province's auditor general finds.

"I'd have to say that we noticed examples across all broader public sector areas that we looked at," Jim McCarter said in his annual report released Tuesday.

"The number of questionable examples that we noted across the system were certainly of concern this year ... we have a lot of examples in here of what we would call really questionable expenditures."

The report highlights include:

A litany of spending abuses at the Children's Aid societies, including all-inclusive trips to Caribbean resorts and questionable overtime. (One employee was paid $21,000 to catch up on paperwork);
$127 million charged to Hydro One credit cards without receipts. (One secretary charged $50,000 in goods that went to her boss, who signed the expenses);
$6.5 million charged on Ontario Power Generation credit cards without any receipts;
300,000 more OHIP cards than Ontarians;
Teachers and staff at four school boards charged thousands for questionable lunches, trips and gifts; and
Workplace Safety Insurance Board patients receiving quicker access to high-tech diagnostic exams than non-WSIB workers.
Spending abuses at several Children's Aid societies, which prompted an outcry last week after a draft report was leaked to the media, included purchases of SUVs worth $59,000 and expensive trips to all-inclusive Caribbean resorts.

One staff member, who was given a society-provided vehicle, also received a $600 a month tax-free car allowance.

I have not heard much about this since. If anyone has more information please share it here