Harper will be spending nearly a billion taxpayer dollars to host a couple of useless meetings that will address tackling the soaring worldwide deficits. Meanwhile, in the crazy corner of the blogosphere, right whingers and libertoonians are outraged! about the billion taxpayer dollars they claim were wasted on the gun registry…um, 15 years ago.

Hey, lets look into whether or not this “environmental” program–that most reputable environmentalist don’t endorse–actually works after we’ve already blown 2 billion taxpayer dollars on it.

Three years after announcing $2 billion in subsidies for the biofuels industry, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has decided to probe whether the so-called renewable fuels might actually be harming the environment.

So who helped foist this $2 billion boondoggle on taxpayers?

Harper’s former director of communications, Kory Teneycke, led a team of industry stakeholders that successfully lobbied the government to promote biofuels, before he joined the prime minister’s office.

And here you have the very essence of conservanomics; a perfect storm of conservative incompetence and ideological ignorance fueled by corporate greed.

Kathy Shaidle demonstrates her economic illiteracy.

One asks:
I am curious to see the intellectual, financial and social contribution these newly arrived [Somali] immigrants will bestow up on Sweden.

One responds smugly:
Of course any one that comes to Sweden is not allowed to constitute a nuisance to the economy, that was why the government established the SFI for migrant to learn the Swedish language first, and from there go to some vocational schools…

Right:
Which costs the rest of you money, dipshit!
Why not just save the money in the first place and not let them in? Which is what Canada should do.

Clearly Shaidle must believe that natural born workers spring from holes in the ground. In the real world that’s simply not the case. Before a natural born worker begins paying taxes they actually rack up a rather large bill at the taxpayer’s expense.

First of all, there’s the cost of delivering them into this world. Then there’s the hefty price tag attached to providing 12 years of basic education. Additionally, a natural born worker spends the first 18 years of their life using all manner of government services without contributing a dime in payment for them. To top it all off, the parents of our natural born worker also get in on the action with generous reductions in the amount of tax they pay along with assorted government stipends.

An immigrant on the other hand typically requires only a few years of education and training before they become a tax paying worker. Clearly immigrants are the most cost effective source of new labour and Shaidle’s nativist economics would end up costing taxpayer’s money rather than saving it.

Here are two articles from today that tell you all you need to know about the contempt the Harper Conservatives display toward taxpayers.

Taxpayers on hook for $1.7-million as PMO rolls out video
Taxpayers are being asked to pay an extra $1.7-million this fiscal year to help bolster Stephen Harper’s communications support services – just as the Prime Minister’s Office begins distributing government videos of Harper to the news media.

Supplementary estimates tabled last month by the Privy Council Office, the Prime Minister’s bureaucratic back office, boosted internal operational spending by almost $7.3-million for 2009-10. That’s on top of existing budgets.

Feds paid out nearly $7M in separation, severance pay
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has paid out nearly $7 million to political staffers who have left their jobs over the past two years.

The amount of “separation pay” that was doled out at the discretion of cabinet ministers is more than twice the amount of “severance pay” the Conservatives were obliged to pay departing political aides under government guidelines…

NDP finance critic Thomas Mulcair, who served as a provincial cabinet minister in Quebec, described the $7 million payout to Conservative staffers as “an outrage” and an “orgy with public money.”

“When they are letting go staff, they are treating the public purse like it was a Conservative candy store,” he said.

Harper is spending tens of millions of our tax dollars in his quest for a majority and to line the pockets of his friends.

Paul Krugman has begun seeing evidence that could signal a double dip recession. Will anyone listen this time and prepare a plan to deal with it or will they just wait until it’s here then claim nobody could have seen it coming again.

The good for nothing hacks at the National Disgrace will get to keep their jobs while 1,600 autoworkers in St. Thomas will be thrown out on the street. That’s just not right.

Friday’s release of the final accounting for `08/09 fiscal year doesn’t contain much we didn’t already know. Those of us in the reality based community have known for a year, thanks to Mike Watkins, that the Harper Conservatives would be running a deficit for that year. There is one thing however, that stands out on table 5 (Revenues as a percent of total). Personal income taxes accounted for a record 49.8% of federal revenues. By comparison, this number stood at 39.5% at the beginning of the Mulroney government 25 years ago.

I’m surprised it took this long but it looks like the teabaggers are finally opening up a branch office in Canada.

It’s fitting that the first Canadian Tea Party is in London, Ontario, and that I’m one of the speakers…
Saturday, October 3, 2009
12:00pm - 2:00pm
Reg Cooper Square, behind City Hall
300 Dufferen Avenue
London, Ontario, Canada

Phone: 519-438-8606
alawton@forestcityinstitute.ca
“Inspired by the success of the TEA Parties in the United States, it’s time for Londoners — and all Canadians — to take a stand in the Forest City against the mismanagement of our money at any level of government, and inform Canadians on what the bureaucrats are really doing with our money.
“Come and join the Forest City Institute in Reg Cooper Square for music, great speakers, and a rally against high taxes, and tell the government to stop over-spending.

Now I’m not saying that the teabag demonstrations are racist–I’ll leave that to others to argue over–but there is a growing perception that they are. So why would Canada’s inaugural teabag party have a well known racist who rarely, if ever, talks about “high taxes” and “government over-spending” as one of their speakers.

Most Canadians are living hand to mouth thanks to the Librocon world we live in.

59: Percentage of Canadians who said they’d be in financial trouble if their paycheque was delayed by even one week. By age group, 45 per cent of people between age 18-34 say it would be tough to get by. By household, 72 per cent of single parents say the delay would have a serious impact.

This is what happens when those in charge of your government simply alternates between different coloured cats. Clearly this country needs a new direction for the good of all Canadians and that will only happen when the mice start electing mice.

Stephen “I won’t raise taxes” Harper strikes again. I’ve lost count. How many times now has Harper raised taxes while adamantly insisting he won’t raise taxes?

Shorter Deficit Jim Flaherty: The $33.7 $50.2 $55.9 billion deficit will be dealt with in some fashion at some time.

Shorter Ottawa Mayor Larry O’Brian: Flushing 90 million taxpayer bucks down the loo is just what we doo.

Then:

80 per cent of infrastructure cash already rolled out, Harper claims
Prime Minister Stephen Harper delivered a rosy report June 11 on the progress of his government’s stimulus spending as he attempted to stave off a summer election, saying 80 per cent of the money earmarked under the plan had been rolled out across the country.

Now:

The Conservative government is warning that if the Liberal opposition forces an election this fall it could jeopardize Canada’s economic recovery by delaying thousands of infrastructure projects.

So which is it; was most of the stimulus funding handed out over two and a half months ago or is most of the stimulus money still waiting to be handed out?

This is going to take some explaining but it looks like the Conservatives are making another sinister attempt to bankrupt the opposition parties.

Some time last year the Conservative Party discovered an error in the way Elections Canada reimbursed the party that has led, according to them, to an overpayment of nearly $600,000 for the 2004 and 2006 elections. The error stems from the way Non Profit Organizations are reimbursed for the amounts they pay in GST/HST and Quebec Sales Tax (QST) combined with the 50% reimbursement they receive in ridings where they attain at least 10% of the vote.

Essentially when the Conservative Party filed their election expenses in order to receive the riding reimbursement it included the amount they’d paid in GST/HST and QST. Therefore they’re claiming that they were improperly reimbursed an amount equal to 50% of the tax money they were already reimbursed.

For example, here is how the system currently works.
A riding spends $100 including the GST.
The party is reimbursed $5 for the GST.
The party is then reimbursed $50 (based on campaign expenditures of $100) because they garnered 10% of the vote.
Total reimbursement: $55

This is how the Conservatives are–perhaps quite legitimately–claiming it should work.
A riding spends $100 including the GST.
The party is reimbursed $5 for the GST.
The party is then reimbursed $47.50 (based on campaign expenditures of $100 minus the GST reimbursement) because they garnered 10% of the vote.
Total reimbursement: $52.50

Are you with me so far? Here’s where it gets interesting. When the Conservatives brought this to the attention of Elections Canada and attempted to refund the money they were apparently told that they couldn’t because it would be unfair to the other parties. So now the Conservative Party has filed a lawsuit against Elections Canada in order to force them to take the money.

So what’s the problem. Well this. The Conservative Party of Canada has only been in existence for 3 elections so if they’re successful in their lawsuit they’d only have to repay the amount they were overpaid in 3 elections. The other parties have been in existence for considerably longer and would therefore have to repay the amount they were overpaid in every election extending all the way back to the introduction of the GST and QST in 1991.

This could easily amount to millions of dollars for the Liberal Party and in excess of a million dollars for both the Bloc and NDP(see update II). While the cash flush Conservatives can easily afford to repay this money, an unexpected financial burden of millions of dollars would considerably cripple the ability of the opposition parties to finance an election campaign until they were able to recoup the losses.

Update: A writer for Candadian Press has come to the same conclusion I did.

Of course, if successful, the cash-flush Conservatives would also ensure that their poorer Liberal opponents have to refund similar - if not larger - sums.

Update II: A lengthier version of the CP story notes that this would not apply to the NDP.

A spokesman for the New Democrats said the party has never applied for the GST rebate.

“(The Conservatives) obviously made a decision to apply for it and now they don’t want it,” said NDP spokesman Brad Lavigne.

This is one scary rumour.

Over the last few days rumours have been circulating, fed by breathless US financial blogs, that Beemo is going down. The point of ignition is supposed to be Tuesday, when quarterly results are announced. According to the current merchants of fear, BMO will announce it’s missing a fat dividend payment of $1.5 billion. That will cause the stock to drop like a stone, and start a cascade of cash exiting the bank…

As you might imagine, a collapse of one of the Big Five – even a run on its stock, let alone its assets – would be ruinous for Bay Street, for the federal government, for shareholders, bondholders and the value of the dollar. In short, we’d all be reamed.

Garth Turner, who has been quite the prophet of doom lately, doesn’t think the situation is nearly as bad as the rumours are painting it. In any event, at least we won’t have to wait long to find out.

Wheee!

Following little change in June, employment declined by 45,000 in July, with losses in both full- and part-time work. The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 8.6%, as fewer people participated in the labour market.

By the way, employment in construction declined an additional 1.6% in July. So much for the belief that Harper’s still not approved home renovation credit is working.

Yesterday CP published an article containing claims from two corporate shills, Catherine Swift and David Gray, that the changes in the 1971 UI Act implemented by Trudeau caused an increase in unemployment.

That’s very close to the eight-week eligibility rule introduced by Pierre Trudeau’s Liberals in 1971, sparking a spike in seasonal unemployment and an electoral backlash that helped cost Trudeau his majority in the 1972 election…
Back in 1971, the reforms introduced by then-labour minister Bryce Mackasey were blamed for actually increasing the unemployment rate by one to two percentage points. The ranks of seasonal workers swelled as employees, aided and abetted by employers who adjusted their contracts, worked the minimum eight-week qualifying period and went on the dole.
“It opened the floodgates,” says Catherine Swift, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

The problem with these claims is that they aren’t in the least bit true. The unemployment rate in Canada rose from 4.4% in 1969 to 6.2% in 1971 and then held steady at 6.2% in 1972. The changes did not take place until the latter half of 1971, after the unemployment rate had already risen. Furthermore, the US suffered the same rise in unemployment; from 3.5% in 1969 to 5.9% in 1971.

The actual cause for the rise in unemployment of that period–and most likely the loss of Trudeau’s majority as well–was the slumping economy. Canada’s GDP growth went from roughly 7% in 1969 almost down to 0% in 1971.

Click on image to enlarge.

By my calculations Canadians would most likely have been heading to the polls next Tuesday if Ignatieff’s Liberals had sided with the Bloc and NDP to bring the government down back in late June. And this is what would have been on every voter’s mind heading into the long weekend before they did.

Real gross domestic product (GDP) decreased 0.5% in May, a faster rate of decline than in the previous three months.

Harper should, at the very least, send a nice thank you note to Iggy.

Shorter Mark Carney: The recession I said we’d avoid is over.

I’m going to start tracking the status of stimulus spending in the London area. Yesterday I visited a half dozen of the sites that will be worked on in order to stimulate the economy. Since the list of projects was only released five weeks ago none of them, as I expected, showed any signs or impending signs of construction.

A little digging on the City of London website however, revealed that the tender for one of the projects–the Carling Arena on Grosvenor Street, which is slated for roof repairs and an upgrade to its refrigeration system–was issued on July 6th. This tender however, is only for the roof repair portion of the $1.7 million project and won’t close until the 22nd of July. Since the tendering process takes a month or more to complete once it closes it’s unlikely this project will get underway before September at the earliest.

The tender for the $630,000 roof replacement for Farquharson Arena located on Tecumseh Road was also issued on July 6th and and closes on July 29th. Construction on this project won’t likely commence until September or later as well.

Further digging on the City of London website revealed that the $1.175 million development of the Ed Blake Park on Barker Street isn’t expected to begin until 2010. The same applies to the $950,000 project at Medway Park, located just south of the Sherwood Forest Mall on Wonderland Road, that includes a new skate park, playground and spray pad. I plan to contact representatives at the city’s Park, Planning and Design department to see if these projects will be moved ahead to this year and will provide an update when I get the information.

Earlier today I wrote this comment over at Dawg’s Blawg in a post about the Conservative Party’s latest immigration fiasco.

I can’t fault Kenney or the Conservatives on these moves to tighten our borders. The left should have long ago insisted that Free Trade not only open up our borders to the free flow of goods but also the free flow of people.

I had planned to expand on this in a post of my own but fortunately while I was procrastinating The New Resilient did the heavy lifting for me.

Canadians need to understand the context of today’s announcement that Mexican citizens will require visas to visit Canada. We also need to understand the root cause of the rising number of Mexican refugees coming to Canada.

Food products—staples such as corn and beans—are flooding into Mexico. Since the 1995 implementation of NAFTA, US corn exports to Mexico have quadrupled. These products are flowing south at prices below Mexican farmers’ cost of production, and below the cost of production in the US. Subsidies enable farmers to produce below cost. NAFTA dictates that Mexico must allow this food in. The NAFTA timetable required that on January 1, 2008, Mexico remove its final restrictions on the imports of staple food products—opening its border completely to imports of corn and beans.

Mexican farmers have been devastated by low prices for corn and other crops. Farm families have been forced off their land, and forced to relocate to large cities and border-town maquilidoras. NAFTA’s body-blow to Mexico’s farm sector has meant a rapid rise in the number of Mexicans who are landless, unemployed, poor, and desperate.

Far too often the debate about free trade myopically focuses on how Canada does or does not benefit from it. What is rarely, if ever, discussed is the effect free trade has on the nations we sign agreements with. As the above example, which is by no means an isolated case, notes, free trade can have a devastating effect on the population of nations that are much poorer than the countries they’ve entered into agreements with. Because of this, it’s important that Progressives begin to tie immigration issues and the free flow of people across borders to free trade and its free flow of goods across borders. After all, people should at least have the same freedom of movement that your made in China DVD player does.