Federal budget nothing but fairy dust in unicorn pee

On Monday, April 19, the federal government presented issued an overdue budget that failed to provide an accurate report on Canada’s fiscal position, present or future.

The speech on grand plans based on extravagant spending is the equivalent of a recipe for how to sprinkle fairy dust in a dram of unicorn pee to make a fabulous cocktail.

The show’s centrepiece was a plan to intrude in provincial jurisdiction and create a national daycare program. The federal government has no constitutional authority over daycare and is misusing its spending powers to control another aspect of provincial sovereignty.

Daycare is hyped as a counter to the uneven impact of COVID-19 regulations on women. Daycare will allow them to return to employment. Millions are hourly paid employees in the service and retail sectors which our governments have callously closed down by regulation. Daycare does not put food on the table.  

The CRA wants to tax their tips and any discounts they receive for meals and the wares they vend. Tell us again how much they care about the women they abuse. Give these ladies a $2,500 annual tax credit for the unpaid child care they provide as mothers and we might be impressed.

Freeland’s budget is an extension of Prime Minister Trudeau’s comment that a commitment to growing the economy will let budgets balance themselves. Weirdly, it’s true.

Bad budgets result in bankruptcy or some other form of insolvency. It is possible to borrow enough to force devaluation of the Canadian dollar causing inflation writ large. When the cost of bread increases by ten times and wages remain stagnant, we reap the results of failing to balance the budget.

Our parliament has been absent from scrutiny for two years and is rudderless, lurching from one scandal to another. A recent scandal is the failure to contain the spread of coronavirus. The latest is a Gordian knot of confused and contradictory announcements on when we may get vaccine doses. The government has managed to illustrate its ineptness more clearly than any media scribe.     

Some nations dealt with the virus threat using strict lockdown measures for a limited duration and are operating without restrictions on their population. They still require the quarantine of out-of-country travellers, a routine virus containment strategy in use since the Bubonic plague in the 14th century.

There is nothing in the budget speech outlining a clear path to a return to normal social behaviour.

Governments do not create jobs other than to inflate an already bloated bureaucracy. The problem with big government is that bureaucrats need something to do, which translates into unproductive interference with business and commerce. We need less interference and meddling, not more.

Massive federal infrastructure programs are useless. Money will be spent in major metropolitan areas to garner votes while infrastructure in the rest of Canada continues to deteriorate.

Continuing virus relief programs required because we failed to contain the virus is not and indicator of competence or a source of pride.     

The most glaring omission in the budget presentation was no mention of creating an epidemic combat strategy to ensure we will never again be caught unprepared to deal with a public health threat. The message is that our governments have learned nothing from over a year of public anxiety and upheaval. Fear mongering has been devastating in many ways.

It is not a matter of whether we will face another virus epidemic, but when.

There has been no rationale given for the disruption caused by business closures and forced quarantines. Ongoing hysteria over the threat posed by the coronavirus has worn thin. The disruptions have not stopped new infections.

Our distrust of the political class has deepened. No one from either the government or opposition benches is communicating with the public. Preaching to us is not communications.

Discovering that many of our politicians are closet totalitarians is discouraging but not unexpected. Those who have removed our fundamental freedoms and rights without attempting to justify their actions must not be re-elected. They are too dangerous to be trusted with political power.

Governments have used a virus epidemic as an excuse to throttle democracy and stifle our freedoms and rights. We must ensure that it cannot happen again.