Friday, May 12, 2006

Another broken Harper promise?


Is it even worth keeping track of them anymore?

Is PM reneging on Ontario deal?

Good question. Let's find out.

A year ago, Premier Dalton McGuinty and then-prime minister Paul Martin signed a deal that was supposed to bring an additional $7 billion in federal funding to Ontario.

OK, that's setting the stage. Enter PM Stephen Harper:

In January, during the federal election campaign, Stephen Harper wrote a letter to McGuinty pledging to uphold the deal if he became prime minister.

"We will be fully funding this agreement," Harper said in the letter, a copy of which has been obtained by the Star.

Harper helpfully attached to the letter a spreadsheet setting out the details of the funding agreement, adding up to $7 billion over six years.

Looking good, right? Especially that spreadsheet thing. Uh oh ... hold everything ...

Now it appears the Harper government is reneging.

Really? How? I mean, there was a spreadsheet. A spreadsheet, I tell you.

Ontario was counting on the money to help convert coal-fired power plants to natural gas, to expand public transit, to augment funding for universities and community colleges, and to bring the province up to the same level as the rest of the country in federal spending on immigration settlement and job training programs.

In a letter last week to Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan, federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty repeats Harper's assurances that the Conservative government "is committed to delivering on the financial commitments" in the McGuinty-Martin deal.

I don't see a problem here ... ah, here we go:

But the rest of Flaherty's letter is densely ambiguous and suggests some of the funding is contingent on "discussions with all provinces and territories on restoring fiscal balance in Canada." (Harper's January letter contained no such qualification.)

Ooooooh ... that's not good. But ... but ... we had a spreadsheet, remember?

The spreadsheet attached to Flaherty's letter does not remotely resemble Harper's. Flaherty's firm numbers add up to just $4 billion. The remainder (almost $3 billion) is consigned to a column ambiguously entitled, "further amounts allocated," with a footnote that says "pending the outcome of discussions." As well, the $4 billion includes almost $1 billion in tax credits from Flaherty's budget last week.

Refresh my memory -- does something like this fall under "openness", "accountability" or "transparency"?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

With the CPC having been caught reneging on their promises (again) I confidently predict that conservative voters across Canada will abandon the party in scores, knowing that their votes were betrayed.

Or just explain away / point out liberal broken promises / accept cognitive disonance.

As the late great Douglas Adams said in THGTTG:
"The problem is people"

Anonymous said...

So that was for a little over a billion per year?

Today's announcement of $320 million for immigrant resettlement - 40% of that goes to Ontario

The $1 billion for new transit - the lion's share to Ontario
The $2 billion in the climate change fund - when the programs are negotiated with the provinces a chunk of that goes to Ontario
The $ 1billiion for post secondary school infrastructure - ditto

And the list goes on - I think Ontarion got itself MORE than one billion per yeaar in new funding already.

We don't know what goes on behind closed doors. Negotiations are done in boardrooms - not in the media.
Dalton and his Liberal MP brother sharing notes and private negotiations and then trying to get points by inventing media stories is really is not going to help his position when the Conservatives design programs based on needs and fairness for all provinces.

No more one offs to the loudest whiners or according to the media driven opinion polls.

Dalton may have to learn that he is no longer playing with children in the schoolyard and join the other premiers at the table instead of walking out in a huff.

CC said...

Craig writes:

"Today's announcement of $320 million for immigrant resettlement - 40% of that goes to Ontario."

Not surprising since 40% of new immigrants settle in the GTA area. In short, that amount is perfectly appropriate.

What you're missing, Craig, is that PM Stephen Harper promised this money to Ontario. Promised. With a spreadsheet and everything.

You can argue about whether those amounts are appropriate, but you can't deny that Harper made a pledge, and he has now broken that pledge. That's the issue, and all your tap dancing and rationalization isn't going to change that.