Dear editor,
Fiscal responsibility or ?
For seven years in a row the Conservatives have run a deficit budget. Here is what the federal government has chosen to spend our money on:
• $8.2 million spent by the Prime Minister's Office with its largest and highest-paid staff in Canadian history. Spending in 2013 increased by seven per cent. (source: Jason Fekete, postmedia News, Oct. 13, 2013).
• $14.8 million spent in 2013 on advertising for the "Economic Action Plan" even though the program ended in 2011. (Bill Curvy, Globe and Mail, Jan. 25, 2014.)
• The Harper government spent $28 million promoting the War of 1812 and cut $35 million from Veteran's Affairs.
• Over $298 million spent on taxpayer-paid government advertising since 2009-2010.
• Youth unemployment has increased from 12.2 per cent in 2006 to 14 per cent in 2013.
• Since 2006 when Harper came to power, the Conservatives have given $60 billion in major tax breaks/subsidies to corporations, costing the government in lost revenues an average of $7.5 billion per year. This could have gone toward repairing our deteriorating roads, bridges and infrastructure, creating more jobs.
• How much do Canadian taxpayers subsidize the oil sands every year? $1.38 billion (Fossil Fuels - At what cost? Sawyer and Stiebert, November 2010).
• $1.5 billion in cuts to the environment by 2016. Thirty-five government libraries closed.
• Five oil spill response offices closed across Canada.
• 8.4-per-cent cut to rail transportation safety.
• 99 per cent of rivers and lakes now exempt from federal regulations.
• $56 million in cuts to Canada's Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and 5,000 jobs lost in CFIA, Health Canada, Fisheries and Oceans over next three years.
I call it short-sighted fiscal irresponsibility.
Susanna Kaljur,
Courtenay