The Coalition Meltdown Is A Great Show

Watching the coalition parties self-destruct on each other is an utterly entertaining aspect of the recent Liberal support of the Conservative budget. What is amazing about the fact that so many people think we dodged a bullet on this coalition government, is that there is ample evidence that this coalition would have spectacularly destroyed itself inside of a few months in power. Was the recent socialist budget released by the Conservatives, therefore, really worth selling out for? After all, with the Bloc Quebecois and NDP now at the throat of the Liberals, how great would it have been to watch these three parties tripping over one another in the House of Commons, the constant infighting, the bickering, and the petty and vindictive grabs for power as each tried to push it’s own agenda? Why, Stephen Harper could have stepped back from the abyss, opened the door for the coalition, and watched the three stooges fall to their timely political deaths on the rocky canyon below. He could have taken the principled stand, and benefited from it enormously when the Canadian public was given the choice to vote in a stable government.

It seems like only yesterday that the coalition had come forward with a socialist agenda to bail Canada out of a pending recession, and today we have Gilles Duceppe gushing forward in all his true and colourful glory:

Gilles Duceppe has slammed Michael Ignatieff’s Liberals, accusing them of turning their backs on Quebec and lumping them together with the Tories.

The Bloc Quebecois leader made the comments in front of about 300 party supporters during a caucus meeting today in St-Hyacinthe, Que.

Duceppe likened Ignatieff to his federalist and centralist predecessors and promised that the Bloc would take him on like they did former Liberal leaders Pierre Trudeau, Jean Chretien and Paul Martin.

Naturally Gilles Duceppe is upset about this, as Quebec had the most to gain as an equal partner in the coalition with Canada. The NDP, too, realized it’s last chance for power had come and gone, and Jack Layton is now lamenting most piteously. And as for Michael Ignatieff, his siding with the Conservative budget has it’s own internal consequences, particularly among those who had been salivating at the chance to unseat Stephen Harper.

Even as Michael Ignatieff made the difficult decision to try and rebuild the Liberal party rather than self-destruct, as it most certainly would have, in the coalition of the willing, he has his internal detractors. Atlantic Liberals are going against the budget out of regional self-interest, and the question of changes to Canada’s most famous welfare program, the equalization payments. Danny Boy Williams is back in full metal gear, ready to implement his ABC program and condemn the feds for once again going against the wishes of Atlantic Canada. If they keep this up they’ll soon be as proficient in whining as the Bloc Quebecois.

So while Harper has quite successfully divided the right with his budget, perhaps he has accomplished something he didn’t quite intend to do in his utter capitulation to maintain power: he’s divided the left again.

Also see

Dear Diary: Jack Layton

Freedom For Me, But Not For Thee

I’ve read with interest the passing stories of culture conflict in Canada involving Sikh Canadians who refuse to remove their turbans to adhere to the rules of Canadian workplace safety. Not that I have any interest in what they believe, since their steadfast refusal to wear protective headgear in circumstances where it is a necessity simply shows me that these people do not operate under logical rules of survival. In any situation where protective head gear is an imperative, there are generally good reasons for it. Working as I do on a highrise structure, I can tell you horror stories of the things we’ve dropped accidentally off the side. Hammers, nuts, bolts, large chunks of concrete, steel washers; the list goes on and on and on. If people actually knew what falls off buildings during construction, they probably wouldn’t go within 150 metres of it. So when I say that a brain bucket is a good idea for being around a construction site, you can be certain that I say so with experience behind it. I don’t wear a large protective helmet every day because I like it. I wear it because it’s preferable to having six inches of steel embedded in my brain.

But as Charlie Gillis writes at Macleans magazine, could Sikhs and hard hats have more to do with libertarianism than anything else? The freedom to choose by the individual what constitutes danger, and the willingness to forgo safety mechanisms to keep from experiencing that danger? The argument:

This new wave of thinking hangs on an intriguing—and more libertarian—take on religious freedom as it pertains to safety. “Not wearing a hard hat doesn’t jeopardize anyone else’s safety, ” says Ryder. “If risk to others [in the workplace] is very low, the right answer may be to say this is a matter of individual choice.” To understand how this is possible, it’s important to remember that human rights decisions supersede other laws. That means a Sikh who wins an exemption from hard-hat rules will not be able to sue due to the absence of his hard hat. His decision should not, therefore, dramatically inflate employers’ insurance premiums, and the standard concern about these exemptions creating “undue hardship” on employers will be moot.

The costs to the rest of society are another matter. As the provincial court judge hearing the Ontario motorcycle helmet case noted, the cost of treating devastating brain injuries is enormous. So too is the burden on family members who lose a loved one to head injury. The state, therefore, has a legitimate interest in keeping people safe. Moreover, how does one assess the potential risks and expenses on a site-by-site, worker-by-worker basis? What are the risks on, say, a construction site, where a worker may split his time between an office trailer and a yard of swinging I-beams? Making the calculation itself could become a hardship.

Mr.Gillis concludes that in this specific circumstance, the Sikh security guard was not being posed any danger in the duties of his employment. And there’s probably a strong possibility that statement is true. The construction site I work on is also “guarded” by elderly Sikh security personnel who patrol the site at night without any protective headgear, and are leaving for home by the time we arrive to begin work at 7:00am.

The problem arises from the question of allowing people to make personal prerogatives in a situation where blanket safety rules apply. If construction workers are mandated by the Workman’s Compensation Board [or Worksafe] to wear a protective hard hat at all times, it only undermines the entire rules of safety legislation to allow someone to not cooperate based on religious grounds. If a worker sees a Sikh guard not complying with safety guidelines, he’s more liable to become contemptuous of the entire safety structure, rather than see it as one individual exercising religious prerogative. Even where no evident overhead danger exists, in any worksite where tools or equipment of a dangerous nature exist, one would be advised to wear brain-protecting equipment. If a person is able to opt out because he’s a Sikh, why should not anyone be allowed to do so?

Religion is considered by many atheists, like myself, as a state of mind that contrived to create a superbeing entity for a theoretical reasoning as to how the Universe was created. The reasons for refusing to wear a hardhat, then, can only be seen as being a state of deluded reasoning to an atheist, who believes that the turban does nothing more or less than keep the persons hair up. If this sounds insensitive, it isn’t meant to be. Atheists also believe that Christian crosses are nothing more than a fanciful adornment, Jewish Yamulka’s a tiny crown caps, and the Islamic burqa a decorative curtain. We only show respect for these beliefs as a way of showing respect to an individual who happens to believe in this state of mind as being a real manifestation of these delusions. And, of course, any religious person is fully welcome to consider the possibility that atheism, too, is a delusion entirely crafted by the mind.

But having made the above argument, if a Sikh turban is nothing more than a personal belief, then anything can be contrived to be a personal belief, and a personal prerogative. If a Sikh person can argue that his personal state of mind depends on wearing a turban, then as an atheist I can argue that not wearing a helmet is also a state of mind that I am most comfortable with. The fact that one person is able to get away with this because of the archetypal acceptance of organized religion, and I cannot, is an evident contradiction of individual freedoms. The only solution, then, is not to serve these situations on a case-by-case basis as Mr.Gillis argues, but an iron-clad rule that applies to all. If Sikh men do not want to wear hard hats, they can work in other occupations.

Friday Photography

I’m running late tonight, so I will not be explaining why I like the images. The baby I chose as my first “people” picture because of the colouring. I wish I had had more time to select photos, but I hope you enjoy my top 8 anyway:

Toronto Harbour in Winter – Peter Bowers

Canada by the falls by Kaj Bjurman

Eagle stalking prey in Homer, Alaska

Singing The National Anthem Is Important

I got in trouble in high school once for something I did that I will never forget. I went to school in Toronto, which was, and remains, a heavily multicultural city. I grew up among people of various backgrounds, from different cultures and religions, different thoughts and opinions. But what I always thought united us was the fact we were Canadian. I still feel that way, but to a certain extent I know that official multiculturalism has diluted the sense of oneness of a people, by foisting the idea of diversity as being “separate but equal” people living together.

The trouble I got into was over the National Anthem. I was in class standing for the morning Anthem, when I looked over and saw an immigrant child sitting down with his baseball cap pulled tightly over his ears. Scowling in disbelief, I waited until the end of class, walked over to him, and politely tried to educate him. Standing and removing your cap for the National Anthem of Canada is not only an important part of becoming Canadian, it’s an important part of reinforcing who you are. The student merely shrugged, more likely because he had no idea what I was getting at, but also because of his poor command of the language, and walked away from me. I shouted after him as he left that he didn’t deserve this country. My high school teacher witnessed this act of “racism”, and sent me to the principal’s office for a lecture in diversity.

My story isn’t the same as the one taking place in a rural New Brunswick school, but it certainly can have the same damaging divisiveness:

As Conservative MPs called for the national anthem to return to a rural New Brunswick school’s morning rituals, the principal of the school says he is taking the matter to a human rights commission.

Principal Erik Millett has been at the centre of controversy since it was learned he ended the daily O Canada ritual at Belleisle Elementary in Upper Belleisle, N.B. because of the complaints of two parents.

[...]

Radio Host Tyler Glen of Star-FM in Brandon, Manitoba spoke to Millett Friday morning.

Millett, who ran as a candidate for the Green Party in the last election, has faced suggestions that his personal views were responsible for the decision. But he says there were two reasons for his decision; parent’s complaints and that the anthem disrupted students in the morning.

“It’s true that we have students, that for various reasons, are not allowed to sing the national anthem (for) whatever reasons, religion, beliefs, values,” he told the radio station.

The problem with “accommodation” of religion, beliefs, and values that go above and beyond the purpose for which they were intended, is that it diminishes our own religion, beliefs, and values in turn. This isn’t about foisting our own religion upon anyone, but having those who live in Canada appreciate who and what we are. Our National Anthem is an inspiring and rather short way of showing appreciation that we live in one of the most wonderful countries on Earth, where we have relative peace, prosperity, and happiness. It isn’t much to ask that students be reminded every day of what country they live in, and the privilege that this is, regardless of whether one is born here, or in a country where bombs rain night and day.

It wasn’t asking much for that student to remove his cap and stand so that he might become a part of a country that my own family has lived in for 154 years. And it isn’t much to ask someone who has only been here for a day. It’s a very small token of respect for our own culture, beliefs, and national pride.

Related

Blue Like You: Should God be removed from our National Anthem?
Crux of the Matter: N.B. school banning anthem is PC

Harper Unites The Right, And Then Cuts It In Half

I’m “over” the budget now that I’ve had a few days to mull it over. I’ve accepted what has happened, and like many other people, I’m moving on. But I did want to take note of a new political dichotomy that has emerged in the conservative blogosphere among those who believe that Harper’s budget was practical, pragmatic, and all part of the incremental path to a Conservative majority government, and those who believe he sold out like an AC/DC concert ticket.

This splintering may be ignored by many who can’t accept the unwisdom of this budget, nor part ways with the enjoyable pastime of ridiculing the opposition, but it’s there. And Stephen Harper made it happen. Not the coalition. Not the opposition. Not separatists. Stephen Harper. To wit:

We are condemning ourselves to financial crisis on a large scale with the short-term thinking that is evident in Harper’s ‘pragmatic’ approach. The Prime Minister has the luxury to do this because he doesn’t expect to remain in power long enough to catch the brunt of the long-term consequences. It is, in fact, the citizens of Canada at large who will have to deal with the implications of this budget. And those implications will be profoundly unpleasant.

Unpleasant indeed. When Andrew Coyne, generally considered one of the most staunch defenders of fiscal conservatism in Canadian political writing, declares Conservatism “dead”, we have a problem that is greater than something that can be written off by declaring him and those who agree with him as liberals, red tories, or “fair weather” conservatives.

Don Martin of the National Post writes about the ideological about-face of the Prime Minister:

18 years after it was given a passing grade at the University of Calgary, as a torturous insomnia cure except for the name of the student on the title page: Stephen Joseph Harper.

Yes, the same Stephen Harper now all grown up as Canada’s Prime Minister, who concluded in his 1991 master’s degree thesis that aggressive government intrusions into the free market economy should be avoided because they are usually just political ploys for re-election.

I don’t deny people are allowed to change their ideological leanings. I openly used to believe that socialism and capitalism when mixed properly could produce the most viable economy. But there’s a difference between changing one’s economic ideology as an individual, and doing it as leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. Worse still, there is little reason to doubt that we now have two Liberal parties, with the exception that one has acknowledged what it is.

Even the most cautiously optimistic, ardent supporters, and die-hard partisan Conservatives have noticed the rift in the conservative movement in Canada that only a few months ago were still clinging to frail hope that Stephen Harper would, one day, return the country to the right of centre. Jarrett Plonka, a blogger I’ve read for a long time, and met personally, is one of the most genuinely conservative people I know. A law student, he has been a Conservative youth supporter for years, and tried to be patient with this party through each and every rocky bump in the road. But as a fiscal conservative he acknowledges the salient point:

You know the Conservatives are actually closet Liberals when their budget is endorsed by Floyd Laughren, Michael Ignatieff, and Dalton McGuinty.

In the end, we were all sold a bag of goods from the Conservatives. This wasn’t about the coalition government destroying our country, usurping power, and threatening to ruin us financially. This started a long time ago, perhaps, long before the Conservatives were even the government. Their quest for power was so alluring, so utterly compelling, that somewhere along the way they entirely lost the point: bringing Canadians a fiscally conservative government that is transparent, responsible, and accountable. We got none of those things. Even the last election is a perfect example of this. Even as Stephen Harper lied, and weaseled, and equivocated his way past Stephane Dion’s Liberal party by telling us he’d run a massive deficit, there is little doubt that this party had no intent of living up to a standard they accused the Liberals of not believing in:

It was the biggest promise of the 2008 campaign: to lower the diesel excise tax by two cents, to give truckers a break on their fuel bills. Doesn’t sound like much, does it? Precisely: the Harper Conservatives were all about not sounding like much, because back then, Harper’s goal was to portray himself as the candidate of modest prudence against Stéphane Dion’s reckless adventurism. Stephen Harper wasn’t going to spend us into debt and recession. Stephen Harper wasn’t going to promise the moon. Stephen Harper would stay focused. That’s what was needed, he said at every stop. His “training as an economist,” which he took care to mention three times a day, told him so.

Well, Stephen Harper has failed Canadians, and he has failed his constituents who wasted their vote for him. For those who think this will lead us to vote for the opposition, you’re either willfully ignorant or else intellectually dishonest. No, from actions as divisive as this are borne new ideas, new leaders, and new movements. New political parties. Where a void is left by the actions of one person, another will fill that place. There is a void for conservatism in Canada. When it is filled by a party that is fiscally responsible, and genuinely conservative, you can bet it will receive the votes of conservatives.

The Real Question Is, How Many Of These Protesters Are On Welfare?

It’s a valid question. After all, it’s obvious that none of the Sri Lankan’s who protested in front of Union Station in Toronto today have jobs, or if they do, certainly keep odd hours. While the rest of Toronto was busy trying to get home from work where they earn a living, pay their taxes, and contribute to Canada’s sagging economy, representatives of our country’s failed multicultural experiment were busy biting us on the heels again:

Thousands of protesters flooded onto one of Toronto’s busiest downtown streets at rush hour on Friday in opposition to a Sri Lankan government offensive aimed at crushing the separatist Tamil Tigers.

The protesters formed a human chain outside Union Station, a main transit point for commuters catching trains, subways and buses out of the downtown core.

The flood of protesters and commuter traffic clogged the area as the rally began to disperse at 6 p.m.

The protesters gathered along several kilometres of slushy sidewalks in the downtown core beginning around noon, chanting slogans such as “we want peace” and “help us, Canada”. They remained in the area as commuters tried to reach Union Station at the end of the workday and police directed pedestrians and traffic through the area.

Protesters say that in recent days, more than 800 Sri Lankan civilians have been killed in the offensive while government officials say the number is closer to 300.

Another war in some godforsaken hole that has nothing to do with Canada, and another group of angry protesters. As though any of this has anything to do with Canada whatsoever. I’m sick and tired of Canadians of convenience constantly railing against incidents happening back in their old countries. If you want to change things there, save up some money and buy a plane ticket back there. But if you want to stand outside a subway station and block people from getting home on a Friday night because you don’t like the idea of some foreign government killing a terrorist army, prepare to meet the exact opposite reaction you were hoping to produce.

Oh, and:

“The Tamil Tigers were declared a terrorist organization by the U.S. in 1997 and by Canada in 2006.”

Tougher Sentences For Human Trafficking

Moving on from the flurry of activity in Ottawa recently, my eye was caught by an article involving human trafficking today and I was most surprised by the fact that Canada’s criminal code has no minimum sentence on the crime. That could change as Conservative MP Joy Smith is introducing a new bill that would set a minimum of five years in prison for trafficking cases that involve children. I don’t think you could find anyone could argue that this is a great bill and should be easily passed, and the only question I could possibly have is whether it’s enough. When you consider how heinous this crime is, the maximum of 14 years sounds far too lenient. Human trafficking in Canada is a real problem, and involve as many as 600,000 to 800,000 people a year worldwide with $5 billion in revenue. This site says it’s as high as $9 billion and the U.S. government has spent $100 million fighting it.

Most victims are women, half are children, and two-thirds will wind up being sex slaves. Canada is a destination for human traffickers, with a report estimating 600-800 are trafficked here, while 1,500-2,000 are transported through here to the U.S. A local B.C. expert, Benjamin Perrin, a University of British Columbia law professor, says the bill is good news:

“The courts are failing us right now so there’s a vital need for this private member’s bill,” Perrin told The Canadian Press.

[...]

“If these trafficking convictions are going to simply amount to pre-trial custody (sentences) the public is not protected and certainly the traffickers are not being held accountable,” Perrin said.

“It’s very troubling that the grave nature of this crime hasn’t been reflected in these judicial decisions to date and Parliament needs to step in and send a very clear message that these traffickers will be dealt with very severely.”

Consider the alternatives. Imani Nakpangi was handed three years in prison in Canada for trafficking a teenager and two for living off the avails of her prostitution. At 17, “Eve” finally escaped her 2 1/2 years of sexual slavery under Nakpangi, and led police to a Mississauga motel room where a 14-year-old girl was being pimped out by him. Eve was forced to prostitute herself to more than 12 men a day, seven days a week, and every penny was kept by this scum. With a minimum sentencing law, this trafficker would have got 5 years plus the 2 for “pimping”.

I think this also says a lot about the sorry state of affairs of our immigration system, since child and people trafficking is usually carried out by immigrants and immigrant gangs that exploit people from their own country and manipulate them for their own aims.

Jack Layton Scorned, Stephen Harper Warned

The coalition honeymoon is over, and Canadians are dancing in the streets in celebration as we end the horrifying possibility of a government forming that would quite likely send us and our country into irrecoverable debt. The only downside to this is, of course, the fact that another government has done pretty much the same thing. Alas, why bother with such tiresome details, when it’s so utterly fun to revel in Jack’s anguish?

Make no mistake. There is nothing more amusing than watching Jack Layton go to work. His principles are so flexible that he could stretch them to the moon and back four times. His tactics are dependent entirely upon what might enhance his power in politics to the greatest degree. And every move he makes is based upon the opposition of his enemies, even when he might agree ideologically. In that respect, then, he shares much with Stephen Harper.

I found it most amusing today to find out that Stephen Harper called Jack Layton a person “pretend[ing] he’s a left-wing ideologue”. That’s rather rich coming from someone pretending to be a right-wing ideologue. Truly, politics has been stripped of all sense of irony.

As for this budget, one would think the NDP would approve, in principle, of trying to spend everything including the kitchen sink to get out of a recession. After all, the Ontario NDP tried it in the nineties, to great success:

Back in 1990 we collectively did something crazy and elected a NDP majority government to rule us at Queen’s Park. The victory was so unexpected that the premier-elect started his election night speech by saying “I can’t believe we won.”

Frankly, neither could we. Five years of eternal night ensued and children who were born during that period are still considered to be “not quite right.” It was a dark time and one I try not to talk about very often. Remembering the NDP government is not unlike the ending of First Blood. Rambo was right, you just don’t turn it off.

Almost immediately after being elected, we suffered the same recession that hit everyone at the time. Rae and finance minister, Floyd Laughren, decided to address the downtown by tripling Ontario’s deficit. The results were pretty much what you’d expect them to be and in 1995 the NDP were crushed in a way that only the people of Cambodia can truly appreciate.

To those who say that the coalition could have made this budget a whole lot worse, to them I say: “That’s like telling a burn victim it could be worse. They could have cancer.”

Don’t Expand Employment Insurance, Eliminate It Completely

The above may sound callous, but it is in fact a sentiment based on experience. The opposition was disappointed that this budget did not include a measure to fast-track Employment Insurance benefits from the minimum two week waiting period, and in the context of need, I agree completely. Expanding the program from 45 to 50 weeks is ultimately useless. The point isn’t to encourage 11-month dependence upon what is supposed to be a social safety net, but to help people during a time of distress in their lives. Making them wait 2-6 weeks for their hard-earned pay is something beyond callous. It’s wrong on every level.

The government says it doesn’t want to pay people to stay at home, but that’s precisely what the current arrangement offers, but only to those who don’t really require a substantial income anyway. Most people can’t survive on the pittance given by the program of 55% of their weekly income to a maximum of $430 per week, which means the program only encourages abuse from those who use the fund as a stop-gap. The public has been deluded into thinking E.I. is a social safety net, a parachute that will open when people fall out of the airplane, and save them from catastrophe. But this is nothing but a facade. The only thing E.I. accomplishes is the facilitation of gradual acclimatization to poverty, and quite possibly welfare or homelessness.

Besides the fact that E.I. has a dark history of being a Liberal slush fund for paying down the federal debt, Paul Martin’s amendments to the program have accomplished a remarkable fact: 61-63% of unemployed Canadians have no “safety net” at all. If they lose their jobs, they’re quite simply “screwed”. The problem with socialist programs like this one is that it works in theory, and fails miserably in practice.

One year ago today, I was unemployed in Ontario. I was laid off from my job two days after my daughter was born, and a day after my grandfather passed away. Like all Canadians forced into paying into a collectivist fund, I applied for Employment Insurance benefits. After waiting for six weeks with no income and three dependents to feed, I took matters into my own hands and arranged to move to British Columbia where the economy is still strong. Had I waited for the government to decide whether my newborn baby deserved food or not, I have no idea where I would be today.

Similarly I have a friend who worked for an American company here in British Columbia who was laid off at least six weeks ago. He has a wife and three children. E.I. lost his employment record twice, denied his claim because the ROE erroneously referred to him as “dismissed”, and now has him still waiting for his claim to be “processed”. Meanwhile he has four mouths to feed beyond his own, a mortgage, car, groceries to buy, bills to pay, and all the little expenses that mark our continual expenditures of existence. But I fear waiting for the government to decide whether he qualifies for benefits he contributed for years is a mistake. I hardly trust the government to spend my taxes wisely. Why would I trust them to help me when I’m down?

No. The only solution to E.I. is to axe the whole program. Eliminate it. Kill it. Destroy it, and destroy the diseased idea that it helps anyone. Unless the program pays you back a “stimulus” amount proportionate to the amount you put in, it’s worthless. Unless the program approves you immediately, and provides an income that simulates your full working income capacity, it’s a joke. A joke that, unfortunately, leaves parents wondering whether they’ll be able to feed and house and clothe their children.

We must remove the mentality that government is there to save you. It isn’t. And it never will. Neither will this worthless budget. It is all wishful thinking based entirely upon the socialist delusion that government can help you, instead of allowing you to help yourself. If E.I. were eliminated, it would be your own responsibility to bank rainy day money for unemployment. If everybody were allowed to keep their E.I. contributions, once workers had socked away a few thousand dollars they would be in much better shape than waiting and hoping and praying they get a benevolent government worker to review their file in Ottawa.

You currently have people who have been laid off after 33 years of continuous work who are only entitled to 55% of their income, for a maximum of 50 weeks, with a waiting period that usually lasts up to a month and a half. In what way, shape, or form can this be considered social security?

A Few Disturbing Points

Quarter to nine in the evening, and I haven’t even read the bonanza of budget punditry at Macleans yet. But I did wish to offer a relatively short, but not necessarily painless, series of links that you may find interesting:

1. It’s bad enough the Conservatives caved in like a magnitude 9 Earthquake in China to avoid the dreaded “coalition” governing the country, but to then ask the Liberals whether they might want to add a few billion here or there to make things even better, really just sends the nausea meter off the charts.

2. As the spin doctors work furiously to prove this is all a “necessary evil” and a coalition gun to the head, David Akin is painstakingly explaining the reality. We’re finishing fiscal 2008-09 in a deficit. Even if the government had done zippo, Jim Flaherty is $15 billion in the red. The following fiscal years will total $64 billion in new debt. We mustn’t confuse “stimulus” with the fact the Conservatives are running a massive deficit without a dime spent on the recession.

3. Dalton McGuinty is not going to “look a gift horse in the mouth“.

4. Former deficit-master NDP Finance Minister Floyd Laughren approves of this budget. He should, because it is, after all, an NDP budget.