John Baird Says "Once Upon a Time"

Further to the Reform Party Stimulus Fairy Tale, John Baird is now telling all the good little boys and girls that everything will be just fine.

The lineups at the food banks are orderly. The homeless people who have no cars to live in, can camp out under the bridges that are in need of repair, and bankrupt Canadians will soon join them; so they won't feel lonely.

I think Canadians need to write the end of the story:

"And the Reformers were driven off Parliament Hill and we all lived happily ever after".

Stimulus report a 'fairy tale'
Liberal MP Kennedy says government misleading Canadians on number of projects
Les Whittington Ottawa Bureau
December 2, 2009

OTTAWA–A report on the Conservative government's economic stimulus plan will say that 8,000 government-funded urban renewal projects have been launched across the country this year.

The Conservatives previously reported that Ottawa's funding had helped get more than 4,000 road, bridge and other infrastructure projects under way by the end of September. The latest figures will double that estimate.

While Prime Minister Stephen Harper is on a visit to China, his government is to unveil the quarterly report Wednesday to Parliament on the economic program.

The Liberals on Tuesday accused the Harper government of misleading Canadians about Ottawa's pro-growth program.

"Canadians are going to get an expensive fairy tale," Liberal MP Gerard Kennedy said when asked about the report. "It's going to be all promotion and no reality," Kennedy (Parkdale-High Park) told reporters. "It's unfortunate for Canadians that they are going to be misled by their own government."

The 8,000 projects underway include more than 40 per cent of the projects announced under the flagship Infrastructure Stimulus Fund, The Canadian Press reported.

The $4 billion fund, which requires matching cash from provincial and municipal governments, has approved 3,226 projects, a spokesman for Transport Minister John Baird told the news agency. Of those projects, 1,390 – or 43 per cent – accounting for $1.4 billion in federal funding have moved beyond the announcement stage and work has started, Chris Day said.

Harper committed to compiling the quarterly reports on how quickly the government's stimulus spending is getting out the door as a condition for Liberal support of the Conservatives' 2009 budget. But the reports and the economic action plan have become a magnet for conflict between the Liberal opposition and the government.

For instance, the Liberals said their sampling of 1,000 projects showed that only 12 per cent of the infrastructure projects were creating any jobs by September.

They also say the government refuses to release information that would give the public a clear idea of how many jobs are being created by Ottawa's infrastructure spending, which is costing taxpayers $16 billion over two years.

Kennedy, the Liberal infrastructure critic, said cities are required, as a condition for receiving funding from Ottawa, to regularly report job-creation numbers for urban renewal projects. But the government has refused to make these reports public, he said. "There can only be one reason – the Conservatives made false claims of `90 per cent of projects implemented' and thousands of jobs created, while hiding the information that contradicts those claims."

Asked about this in the Commons, Baird said Kennedy was working with outdated information that is three or four weeks old. (Actually the new reports suggest a mere 7%)

Baird said the government's spending is accomplishing its goal of stimulating economic activity.

"The economic action plan is working and we are continuing to make announcements and see construction begin in every corner of the country," he told MPs.

We Were Warned in April That the Harper Governmment Was Playing Games With Stimulus

In April, long before the revelations of an accounting mess known as Canada's Action Plan, we were warned that the Reform Conservatives were playing games with the stimulus funding, but as always this got past the media, who are more concerned with providing entertainment than giving Canadians information.

There is a reason why we may be the last to come out of the recession. The whole thing was a fraud, carefully designed to make the government look good, rather than actually doing any good. It just gave them a huge taxpayer funded ad campaign.

'Enron John' is at it again.

Stimulus spending does not match claims from Harper at G20

At last week's G20 summit, Stephen Harper bragged about the extent of Canada's stimulus spending and challenged other nations to do as much. A Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives report indicates, however, that Canada is doing far less than Harper claims and that the stimulus package, at best, will create no more jobs than were destroyed in the meltdown even before the federal budget was announced in January.

Although Harper says Canada has nearly achieved the G20 objective of two percent of GDP in stimulus spending, economist David MacDonald says that figure is only achieved at by an "accounting game". It discounts $8 billion in unannounced cuts and asset sales and it relies on what lower-tier governments come up with to match the federal stimulus package ....

Was the Canada Action Plan a Complete Fraud?

I stumbled across a website from YouTube, called Fake Action Plan. The group that runs the site has suggested that the Canada Action Plan was nothing more than an advertising gimmick; long on promise and short on any results.

As the Reform Conservatives continue to stonewall the Parliamentary Budget Officer, and economists are warning that Canada is not as sound as Flaherty and Harper would lead us to believe, this should be yet another wake up call.

We need to make this government accountable. This is Mike Harris all over again.

It's all talk no action

Show me the money. That's what I am hearing from everyone when I mention the stimulus spending that our government keeps talking about. Canadians are still losing their jobs and businesses are still closing their doors but all we hear about in the media is how much money is starting to flow.

Where did all the stimulus money go?

The fact is, most of the money that was intended to stimulate the economy is still sitting in the bank. Some has already been wasted on frivolous projects like rink upgrades or routine building maintenance and huge sums went to bailout the corporate welfare club.

Unfortunately the more important projects aren't underway yet and shovels haven't even broken ground. The time they should have started these projects was last summer. That means most of the work will have to wait until next spring if it ever starts at all ....

Unbelievable. Municipalities Must Now Have to Pay for Ref Con Advertising

If you thought blackmailing MPs to vote in favour of abolishing the gun registry was bad, there's more. The Reform Conservatives are demanding that municipalities fork over cash for their self-promotion advertising before they can get stimulus money.

Municipalities that are already hurting, must come up with this cash BEFORE they can get a big cardboard cheque. Remind me again why these guys aren't in jail!

Municipalities on hook for signs plugging Conservative stimulus plan

OTTAWA — Municipalities are being told if they want federal infrastructure cash, they have to pay for and install additional signs at each project promoting the federal government's economic action plan.

The signs can cost between $1,000 and $7,000 apiece. That, when multiplied by the thousands of projects approved, means municipalities could spend as much as $45 million on the four-coloured signs — which have the same visual style as the government's $100 million advertising campaign promoting its economic action plan...

New Poll Suggests Canadians Knew Harper Was Lying About Stimulus

A new poll released today reveals that Canadians believe that the Reform Conservatives did not play fair with stimulus funds. Peter MacKay may have been one of the worst, but Tony Clement was a downright thief. What can you expect from a Mike Harris throwback?

But the John Baird remark made by Rick Mercer may not have been fair. Just because he led his chorus of hecklers to laugh at Dr. Carol Bennett when she was trying to ask a serious question about H1N1. That was funny wasn't it?

Poll: Tories biased on stimulus funding

OTTAWA — A new poll suggests the Harper government’s multimillion-dollar, taxpayer-funded ad blitz to promote its stimulus plan doesn’t seem to be having the desired effect. The Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey also suggests most Canadians believe Liberal claims that stimulus spending favours Conservative ridings.

Less than a third of respondents to the poll said they were aware of any stimulus projects underway in their areas. A majority said they believed there’s favouritism in the handing out of cash ....