Liberal Debate Over Election Timing Overshadows Importance of Budget

February 20th, 2008

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s federal Budget 2008 will be tabled next week. Yet Liberal leader Stéphane Dion and the rest of his caucus are already in the midst of intense deliberations on whether they’ll vote against the budget, thereby triggering the fall of our Conservative minority government and sending Canadians to the polls.

Not that we needed more evidence that the Liberals are putting their own political future ahead of the best interests of the nation. They’re far more interested in whether it will be politically-advantageous for them to align themselves with the socialists and the separatists in Parliament and face voters this Spring, than what’s actually in the budget.

No doubt my comments will draw comparisons to the Conservative Party abstaining from the vote on Paul Martin’s budget in April 2005, only to defeat his minority government later that year.

However, before we took the drastic and costly step of triggering an election back then, Canadians first deserved to hear the results of Justice Gomery’s probe into the Sponsorship Scandal. And later that year, with his confirmation that some of the millions of dollars that were stolen from taxpayers ended up with the Quebec wing of the Liberal Party of Canada, Canadians had completely lost confidence in the scandal-ridden Liberals’ ability to manage their tax dollars. It was time to go to the polls.

Right now, Canadians are content with our Conservative Government’s management of the nation’s finances. Canada’s debt burden is at its lowest since the 1970s. The payments we’ve made against the national debt are equivalent to $1,570 for every man, woman and child in Canada!

Tax Freedom Day now comes earlier, and the after-inflation, after-tax income of real families is on the rise. In fact, the total tax burden of Canadians is at its lowest level in nearly 50 years!

Hopefully, if you’ve got a head-start on filing your income tax form, you’ve already noticed the hundreds of dollars you’ll save on your 2007 tax bill thanks to a number of targeted new tax credits and retroactive broad-based tax cuts that our government implemented. Then there’s the two percent GST cut which benefits everyone, including low-income Canadians.

On top of that, our Conservative Government has addressed the long-standing fiscal imbalance so that the provinces have more money for healthcare and education. And, through our Building Canada Plan, we’ve made the largest investment in infrastructure since the Second World War!

Meanwhile, Mr. Dion’s has been busy making countless ‘pie-in-the-sky’, electioneering-style spending commitments that will plunge Canada at least $62.5-BILLION deeper into debt. And that amount represents the cost of only 86 of his major commitments because he hasn’t even put a price tag on 33 more!

In our first two budgets and in our October 2007 financial statement, our Conservative Government demonstrated to Canadians that their faith in our ability to manage their tax dollars is well-placed. This balanced, prudent approach to governing will continue with Budget 2008 and I look forward to reporting back to you on its details next week.