10 days to go

Ten days to go and I expect we will soon start to see a certain degree of panic among Canadian pundits, as they realize their unrelenting negativity toward Trudeau and their horserace cynicism toward election events and platforms may well lead Canadians toward a Scheer minority government.  

And thus the Trudeau government emphasis on poverty reduction, international democracy promotion, Indigenous partnership, climate change initiatives, and economic development will be finished, over, kaput - to be replaced by YankeeDoodleAndy's mishmash of inept and contradictory promises to somehow spend more while cutting more  - and if you believe any of that, I have a bridge to sell you.

Former Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page isn't particularly impressed with the Cons' newly-released budget either:

Page said that closing the tax gap is a worthwhile pursuit, one that all the federal parties are pursuing. He said it was a worthy goal but it hasn't been tried in Canada on the scale the Conservative are proposing. ..."The one thing you don't do, in any plan, if you're saying this is about competitiveness and productivity when you are doing this, is go after infrastructure, because its so critical. That truly is an investment." Page said that economists point to infrastructure spending as a useful tool for boosting a nation's long-term productivity and growth rates.

"Deficit financing tax cuts? That's consumption. If you give me a tax cut I will either spend it or I will just deal with my debt issues with that extra few hundred bucks a year. That provides a temporary boost to the economy, whereas infrastructure definitely is the longer term boost."

Page also said that finding $5 billion in savings from operational expenses would be a challenge — that Harper tried to do it but couldn't find the savings. He also said that cutting $1.5 billion from the foreign aid budget was doable but it would give Canada a very different personality on the world stage.

 By the way, the Liberals are talking about things that really matter to Canadians, like student loans and pharmacare  and climate change.