A blog to give a voice to our concern about the continued erosion of our democratic processes not only within the House of Commons and within our electoral system but also throughout our society. Here you will find articles about the current problems within our parliamentary democracy, about actions both good and bad by our elected representatives, about possible solutions, opinions and debate about the state of democracy in Canada, and about our roles/responsibilities as democratic citizens. We invite your thoughtful and polite comments upon our posts and ask those who wish to post longer articles or share ideas on this subject to submit them for inclusion as a guest post.
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Sunday, January 18, 2015

2015 Budget Prorogued.

We all know that when backed into a corner Harper will do almost anything to avoid any negative information about his regime from emerging from his $65 million plus a year PMO spin machine and that this is particularly true of bad economic news. We know in the past he prorogued parliament in order to avoid what could have been a negative vote on his 2008 fiscal update, whilst not quite as controversial the question must be asked is the delaying of the 2015 budget till April or beyond more of the same?


Given the difficulty that Parliamentarians and the Parliamentary Budget Officer have experienced in the past in getting the true numbers from this regimes finance department in order to understand what they were voting upon is it any surprise that the budget is being pushed closer to the summer recess and fall election date.


Will the promised budget surplus be a reality or just yet another bit of pre-election spin purely designed to fool large swaths of voters that the Conservatives are great fiscal managers. With millions going out daily to support the “war” on terrorism in the Middle East, their plans for the great Canadian Oil Economy sinking back under the sands and more jobs disappearing daily it sure does not look rosy to me. But then I am not an 'economist' ...... but I can add and subtract........ and can remember that “we will not go into recession” speech when touting his 2008 budget.


Bottom line, we need the true state of the economy put before us in order to make an informed decision in October. Will that happen given the Harper Regimes obsession with controlling the message and hiding bad news, not a chance in hell! Oh Kevin Page how we miss you.


Democracy requires access to accurate information in order to make informed decisions, not an item that’s exactly high on Mr Harpers or Mr Olivers to do list!


Tip of the hat to Montreal Simon for this one.




Support Democracy - Recommend this Post at Progressive Bloggers

4 comments:

Owen Gray said...

They've been dishonest since David Emerson crossed the floor, Rural. What's happening now is more of the same.

Rural said...

Yet one more item for that long list, Owen

Simon said...

hi Rural...thanks for linking to my post. It really is scandalous isn't it? This is approximating the level of political corruption of some Banana Republic. They're trying to conceal that they don't know what they're doing, and that they blew a surplus before they had one. And trying to tell us that by hook or by crook they will get a surplus so they can try to buy the votes of even more Canadians. In the name of basic morality we can't get rid of them soon enough...

Rural said...

You are welcome Simon, credit where credit is due. In researching information for my Harper History series (part 2 coming soon) it becomes even more apparent how little regard they have for democracy, banana republic indeed.