LPC Keeps Focus on Jobs, Economy

This is good to see.  Team Red isn’t being distracted by vote subsidies and other issues nobody cares about. 

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Budget Shows Profound Complacency: No Plan for Jobs, No Plan for the Deficit, No Plan for Poverty, No Plan for Sustainability
OTTAWA— Given the chance to set the tone for a new Parliament, the Conservative government today missed an opportunity to introduce a budget that would provide a positive, long term vision for Canada, Liberal leader Bob Rae said today.

“This budget shows the same complacency we saw in the Speech from the Throne,” said Mr. Rae. “It contains no new ideas and fails to seize a rare opportunity to propose a meaningful agenda for long-term prosperity. There is no plan for jobs, no plan for the deficit, no plan for poverty, no plan for sustainability. For these reasons, we cannot support this budget.”

The results of the last election presented the Conservative government with an opportunity to lay-out a long term agenda and propose innovative new ideas for the future of Canada. But instead, the Finance Minister delivered a re-hash of an old budget which showed a remarkable bias for ideology over evidence-based policies, particularly in the areas of crime and justice, economic recovery and deficit reduction.

“The numbers still don’t add up,” said Liberal Finance critic Scott Brison. “Jim Flaherty says he plans to return to balanced budgets by 2015, but this is the same Finance Minister who has never met a deficit projection.”

Mr. Brison recalled the fact that in the latest Conservative platform the Conservatives announced $11 billion in cuts that Flaherty himself could not even explain. This may be the reason why, just last week, the Parliamentary Budget Officer said that balanced budgets are unlikely until at least 2017.

“Either the Conservatives don’t know how they will balance the budget or they are afraid to tell Canadians,” said Liberal House Leader Marc Garneau. “Canada will face many challenges in the years ahead, from infrastructure to health care to making good on promises to provinces like Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador. Canadians deserve to know what the government is willing to sacrifice to reduce the deficit.”

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