Harper’s Message to Canadians: We will Benefit from Your Loss

Canada’s Conservative government has a knack of misspending money and making Canadians foot the bill. This is not an opinion, this is fact.

Let’s look at their track record:

During the G8 and G20 summits, over $1.2 billion went on heightened security and an artificial lake that was criticized by the opposition and even by France. You can read more about it here.

“I thank my Canadian friends for their contribution. I don’t know how it was organized. I can tell you we are in a hotel where the comfort is extremely sufficient and extremely reasonable. I haven’t seen anything sumptuous.

“As for the French G8/G20, even though I can’t confirm the Canadian numbers, they will be 10 times less. Exactly."

Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France

Stephen Harper is spending $16 billion on unneeded and poor quality fighter jets. These jets were found to be less than the American Military bargained for and both the Republicans and Democrats agreed. You can read more about it here.

Stephen Harper’s latest controversy is on a $6 billion tax cut for corporations who arguably have no need for tax cuts. It is also debatable whether the company will use the tax savings for the government’s intentions and if more specific sector spending would be a better solution. You can read more about it here.

There is also the tough on crime prison expansions taking place when crime rates are on the decline. These expenditures are upwards of $2 billion.

“Their whole plan is completely wrong-headed. They’re putting more people in prison claiming it to be for public safety but they’re just warehousing inmates.”

Dianne Dowling

This misspending is $25.2 billion in this list alone so far. Let’s now add $5 billion for renovations to Parliament Hill to install a ‘magnificent glass dome.’ Auditor General, Sheila Fraser warns that this bill will quickly rise.

“The glass dome for the Commons is all part of an extreme makeover of the crumbling Parliament Buildings, a rapidly growing government money pit that is already years late and more than 1,000 per cent over the initial budget of $465 million.

While the government now admits the Hill restoration could cost up to $5 billion, Auditor General Sheila Fraser recently warned the final bill could be much larger.”

CBC

Stephen Harper claims to have a plan to get us out of a record $63 billion deficit, and it is painful. With Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty steering the ship, Canada has lost its balanced books and money has been flushed. To top that, while the Conservatives treat the world and themselves to luxuries, mortgages will prove to hurt Canadians in the coming years.

In reforms to Canada’s mortgage rules, buying and holding onto a house will just be that much more difficult. The time that people have to pay back the mortgage has been reduced from 35 to 30 years. This is accompanied by a reduction of the amount of money that can be lent to obtain that mortgage. From 90% to 85%, more money will need to be paid upfront and the remaining will have to be paid 5 years earlier than before.

“We understand why [Flaherty] did what he did. But we hope when the time comes, he’ll revisit that decision. Real estate is very important to the economy, and it’s crucial that we find a balance because you don’t want to overreact to temporary market conditions.”

He said a better choice would have been to keep 35 year amortizations, but force all applicants to qualify with the assumption of a 25 year amortization.

Jim Murphy, President of Canadian Association of Mortgage Professionals

While the cost of living rises, we see no relief and no plan from the government of Canada.

The over $30 billion in spending is more than enough to fund our healthcare, education, employment insurance and several other social programs that Canadians would have greatly appreciated in this time of economic uncertainty as a safety net. But instead, they chose to spend us into the largest deficit in Canadian history.

Seeing past actions, payment transfer cuts to provinces may also be a viable method of getting Canada back into black ink, but this would severely affect our broken Medicare system. You can read more about it here.
 

Jim Flaherty gives Canadians advice on money management after generating the largest budget deficit in Canadian History.

But after 5 years of Conservative power, Flaherty understands as well as we do that,

“The key here is affordability, it is important that Canadians will not take on obligations that they cannot be able to afford as interest rates rise.”

Jim Flaherty, Conservative Finance Minister of Canada