Canada's Money Troubles

The Harper Government (that’s what Dear Leader likes us to call it) promised a balanced budget, and look! Finance Minister Joe Oliver delivered… sort of. We’re supposed to overlook that the government is hardly spending on anything, and it borrowed from the contingency fund to deliver a meagre $1.4 billion surplus. That shouldn’t be hard; Canadians are highly skilled at not paying too much attention to politics, or anything happening in their country, except for maybe the grand opening of the next big box store.

Do I sound harsh? That’s because my people can be rather arrogant. They proudly wave the maple leaf flag and boast that this is the greatest country on earth while ignoring whatever isn’t spoon fed to them in a quick sound bite, and failing to turn up at the polls on Election Day. That’s why we’ve suffered under the Conservatives for NINE long years. Voter turnout in the last federal election, which gave the Conservatives a majority, was 61.1%. While this was an improvement as compared to the previous 58.8% turnout, the big picture is that Canadians have been voting in fewer numbers since the 1990s.

And if Stephen Harper’s terrorism fear mongering continues to achieve results, we could have yet another four years of him as our prime minister. Interestingly, that’s pretty much what the 2015–2016 budget is about: throwing a little money at defence to reassure the Conservative base that our government is serious about getting the bad guys at home, abroad, and on the Internet. The highlights are here.

Terrorism works as a great distraction; I’ll give the Conservatives credit for that. Meanwhile, reports are coming out stating that 42% of first-time home buyers are getting the money for the down payment from their parents! Am I the only one who is alarmed by this? Fortunately, these people’s parents have the money to give; what about the next generation? At this rate, they won’t have access to the “Bank of Mom and Dad” like their parents did.

Canada has a problem, whether Canadians want to acknowledge it or not. Should we be like Joe Oliver and “leave that to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s granddaughter to solve”?