As if the House of Commons and senate wasn’t enough, the Prime Minister’s Office is the biggest in history. This comes as the Canadian economy is crawling and austerity is coming to find $4 billion in savings. Harper called for small government back in the 90s and in 2004, however, that Harper is gone. In the first 5 years of Harper’s mandate since 2006, bureaucracy has grown 13%, contradicting these small government principles.
As a society and as a community, you would expect that your contribution through taxes would be allocated wisely and as government being a means of allocating resources, you would think that this contribution would translate into some kind of benefit for us all. Well, that isn’t always the case, let’s take a look at the Canada School of Public Service, a department that should be one of the many on the chopping block as it doesn’t benefit anyone except the limited few who get first class trips on the expenses of taxpayers.
The Harper Government is quietly looking into a $3.7 billion purchase of new search-and-rescue planes. When the idea was pitched 6 years ago by the Conservatives, the cost was $3.1 billion, $600 million less than now. The project was put into a bureaucratic limbo a long time ago when Paul Martin first approved it and it never got done.
When you think of healthcare funding, you will likely think that the money we spend goes directly to healthcare. Unfortunately, it doesn’t. Instead, the money goes to hospital administrators and CEOs who have a tendency of treating themselves well and when cuts come along, they are never the first to get the front end. As the NDP scream that healthcare lacks funding, it is becoming more and more evident that healthcare is properly funded, but mismanaged, yet another strike against a political party that is already well known for being unrealistic.
Regular users of the Canadian Healthcare system know that something isn’t right. The system is broken, inefficient and mismanaged. It has become expensive and for the causes that it has received greater funding, it has not improved. Our healthcare system still easily deserves a failing grade for wait times, understaffing and overall performance but while some believe that it is due to a lack of funds, the reality remains that the funds are mismanaged and that regardless how much money you throw in the system, it will be wasted and your healthcare won’t improve.
Canadians pay a lot of money every year. They pay a GST and PST or HST, they pay income taxes, they pay payroll taxes, they pay municipal property taxes and there is a tax for almost everything in Canada. These taxes overlap and soon we all find ourselves struggling to balance our budgets and wondering why money disappears so fast. Meanwhile, government officials tell us that they are doing their best to manage budgets which in most cases are in deep deficits and are leading up to huge debts and budget run offs. The money that we pay is supposed to go toward infrastructure and the services we count on and every time our taxes are raised, there is a promise for better service. Ironically, as taxes increase throughout the country, the quality of our roads and infrastructure, our education and healthcare, and the safety net that we are obliged to fund are all deteriorating. As we speak, public servants with inflated salaries and perks are going on spending sprees and having their unions try to hold taxpayers as hostages. As we speak, government officials are wasting our money and in some cases, even allegedly funding organized crime. Government and bureaucracy in Canada: hand in hand, putting their hands in the public piggy bank, it is time for change.
Peter Mackay came under fire again this week as his hotel spending came to light and it isn’t pretty. Mackay wasn’t alone, information has surfaced that a bureaucrat in charge of managing Aboriginal finances has been taking tax payers for a ride as well.
There is a $10 billion average difference between estimated structural budget balance forecasts between the Conservatives and budget watchdog Kevin Page.
You can throw efficiency, accountability, prudent management and logic out the window with the current Conservative government. Instead of doing the right thing and cutting down on their fat, they unnecessarily increased it and are continuing to increase it as we speak. But that is not all. Parts of Tony Clements’s ‘accountable’ spending in his riding is being exposed and it most certainly will get ugly.
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