Tim Harper has an excellent column in the Star, suggesting that Harper shot himself in the foot on this one. So I decided to put it to music.
Tony Clement singing 'Proud to be an Oinkee from Muskogee'. If you're not sure of the tune in this old Merle Haggard song, the video is below.
We don't want no leftovers in Muskogee; We'll take all you've got if it's for free We don't need those hydrants down on Main Street; Just cover 'em up and we'll clap our hands with glee.
Tony Clement never came from our Muskogee, But rode into town with cash pinned to his lapel Said my own hometown didn't want me in the House there, So vote for me and together we'll give them hell.
I know I'm weird and a little short on lovin'; But my campaign will be all about pitchin' woo; Roads to nowhere and airports just for viewin' We'll do it like those folks in Beverley Hills do.
He's now proud to be an Oinkee from Muskogee, A place where even squares can be dug up. He just waves around those untold millions, Refusing to say "Ok, now that's enough".
Shops in T.O., still waiting for reparations broken windows, mishapen doors and signs torn off. But Tony's busy schmoosing with the big shots, To care much what they need, while Baird says 'Flick off.
Yes he's proud to be an oinkee in the House now But not for long, Tony's now on his way out.
In making his case, Smith said his riding in western Montreal could expect more federal funding if it voted Conservative. "If you look across the country where the Conservatives have had strong representation, a lot of projects have taken place," he said. "But it's normal that you're going to focus on the areas with the people that do support you.
Money for those who support you? What about the 62% of Canadians who don't?
This is where a coalition would have been a better alternative. They could have spread the funding around to areas where it was needed the most, not those the Conservatives hope to hold or win.
Thank you Larry Smith. Your boss will be so proud.
"The Economic Action Plan is just as much about stimulating the Conservative party's reelection chances... This is an abuse of tax dollars. Canadians should not be forced, through their taxes, to subsidize a political party's agenda." (Gerry Nicholls, National Post, Friday, October 16, 2009)
There is a story today in the Vancouver Sun that confirms Nicholls assessment of the abuse of tax dollars, under the so-called Canada Economic Action Plan. It neatly lays out how this government turned what should have been a legitimate attempt at stimulating the economy, into a multi-million dollar ad campaign for the Conservative Party of Canada.
Senior bureaucrats told the Harper government shortly after the last election that its infrastructure plan could be used as a "strategically important" communications tool that would provide "excellent visibility" for local ministers and MPs, Canwest News Service has learned.
The advice was included in briefing notes released through Access to Information legislation. They were prepared for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities Minister John Baird in the fall of 2008, shortly before opposition MPs started questioning whether the government was using its economic stimulus spending to raise its profile and boost its popularity.
From the beginning, the backroom of Harper's House of Haunts, was busy funnelling money to ridings that needed it most, not based on which ones were hit the hardest by the economic downturn, but those that would benefit the Reformers chances of winning the next election.
There is a website called Fake Action Plan, that goes into this in some depth.
Acton Plan Heavy on Advertising Short on Action
"The partisan handouts are just the latest game played with your tax dollars by a government that promised to do things differently. It has blanketed the airwaves with government-promotion ads at a pace six times the rate of any H1N1 public education blitz." (Don Martin, National Post, October 16, 2009)
Signs and television ads became more important than getting money out the door. In Kingston I found several large signs on projects that were .. well ... absent of any project. In fact the only action appearing to have been taken, was sticking up the damn sign.
One was in a church courtyard, where I often sit when I'm downtown. A huge sign blocked my view with the announcement that the Government of Canada was committed to restoring government buildings, or something to that effect.
But the nearest government building was at least a half a block away. So I walked down to it, and there just happened to be a maintenance guy outside, so I asked him if he knew of any restoration going on inside. He answered 'no, but I'm just about to mow the lawn'.
I found another at the base of a creek, with the claim that the Government of Canada was committed to preserving Canada's waterways. Waterways? It was a bloody creek. You could actually jump over it.
And all of this was paid for not only with my federal tax dollars, but provincial and municipal as well, since they found a way to bilk us at all levels.
Big Cardboard Cheques
"There really is sort of layer upon layer of scandal here. You've got not just the use of the logos but the use of individual MPs handing out this money." ( Andrew Coyne, CBC The National, October 15, 2009)
Canadians also learned of the abuse of the Government of Canada, trying to make it appear that the money was coming from the Conservative Party of Canada, and not the Canadian taxpayer.
The uproar was immediate with cries of whose money is it anyway. Not only were MPs handing out big cardboard cheques, signed by them or Stephen Harper, but they were also leaving out the local MPs, if they weren't from their party. One NDP MP complained that the project being funded was a result of her work, and yet she learned that it had been approved by reading it in her local paper. And guess who was handing out the cheque? The Conservative candidate for the next election.
Pork Barrelling
"Beyond the shameful chequebook politics, there's an apparent tendency to concentrate stimulus funding in government-held ridings." (Don Martin, National Post, October 16, 2009)
Instead of targeting the stimulus money to areas that most needed it and were closer to actually putting shovels in the ground, the ref-Cons targeted the spending on ridings that were either vulnerable for them, or the ridings of cabinet ministers.
Pork-barrelling is nothing new, but the economic crisis called for urgent action, not politicking. Many of the projects that sported their 'Actions' signs were ones already in progress or for simple maintenance. Few new jobs.
One of the tests of a government is how well it handles a crisis. The Harper government failed us on the H1N1, resorting to their usual blame game. However, it would appear that their economic action plan is another dud. An extravaganza ad campaign, financed by the taxpayers, but much of the money went to areas that didn't need stimulating at all.
Now it's easy to say that there was a sense of urgency, but if that was the case, how were they able to so cleverly funnel the money into their own ridings, focusing on those of cabinet minsters or seats they risked losing? It took a lot of effort, so why not put a little effort into determining which places in Canada were the most vulnerable?
The Canada Press conducted a study into the spending and found that "Areas that benefit most from spending measures have unemployment rates below provincial averages."
Canada's high jobless regions are losing out as billions in federal stimulus money flows into areas that have been spared the worst of the recession, an analysis by The Canadian Press suggests.
In six provinces, areas that benefit most from stimulus spending actually have unemployment rates well below the provincial average.
Stimulus dollars for British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have been poured into regions where workers have been faring comparatively well.
And the area that has seen Canada's most serious deterioration in employment – the Cariboo region in the B.C. Interior – has seen no special treatment from the federal stimulus plan.
“We need to look at creating jobs. And I don't see that happening,” said Robert Leclerc, president of the Quesnel and District Labour Council, in the Cariboo. “I feel sorry for the pulp mill workers. Who knows what they're going to do?”
There is no easy way to account for jobs created by the $16-billion spending program. Unlike in the United States, Canadian officials did not ask funding recipients to provide information on job creation. Instead, Ottawa relies on a macro-economic formula to estimate how much employment should result.
To determine whether stimulus money has been flowing to areas struggling to deal with the recession, The Canadian Press crunched its own numbers to link spending to unemployment rates.
The analysis follows a similar but separate Canadian Press study that found the stimulus money was heavily biased in favour of Conservative ridings.
The first in-depth independent analysis of federal stimulus spending shows Conservative ridings received millions more than ridings represented by opposition MPs.
The investigation -- a two-week project by the Halifax Chronicle Herald, the Citizen and journalism students from Ottawa's Algonquin College -- found that across the country, Conservative ridings took in $4.7 billion, more than half of the $8.5 billion announced under the federal government's Building Canada infrastructure program, mostly for paving, water, sewer and transit programs.
The analysis found that the federal government has announced, on average, $32.8 million in infrastructure spending in each Conservative riding, $9.2 million more than in opposition ridings.
The riding that received the most money -- $247 million -- is Liberal Ken Dryden's York Centre, which benefits from a third of the largest single infrastructure project in the country, the $697-million York Subway Extension, which cuts across three Toronto ridings. However, this shouldn't have been included in the Action Plan total because this project was approved in 2007, long before the recession hit.
