Okay, so run that by me again. My government was set to blow $25 billion on new fighter jets that won’t even fly in Canada’s north, but there isn’t going to be enough money to let me collect a pension until I’m 67? Really?
I don’t imagine I’m the only person in Canada who is having a serious bout of the post-budget day blues, although I’m not so sure I’m the most upset about the same part of that day as some.
Yeah, the pension’s a boot to the head alright, a two-year sentence in the editorial mines, based solely on the date of my birth.
The worst part of that is that, despite the plethora of studies and evidence stating there’s no real crisis and no need to do it, they went ahead anyway.
That’s not the most alarming aspect of budget day though.
Not even close.
And no, it’s not the loss of the penny, although I am curious about whether retailers plan to round their prices up or down.
Cuts to the CBC? Well, didn’t we all see that one coming a mile away? As if it’s a secret that the CBC was in the crosshairs all the time. You think this is the end of it? Think again. There’s another budget next year, and the year after that, too. Even though I see it as an essential glue that helps bind this country together, I don’t give the CBC more than a single Tory term, two at best.
But even though I dearly love the CBC, that too was not the worst aspect of budget day.
Killing off the formerly independent human rights watchdog Rights and Democracy? Nope. Ever since the Conservatives inserted their people into that once-worthy organization it has been on credibility life support.
It was a mercy killing, really.
How about the complete lack of anything approaching an environmental consciousness?
Nope. Even though MP Elizabeth May called it the worst budget in history because it completely ignores ever more pressing climate issues, that’s not it either.
I have to apologize here, because I’ve engaged in a bit of misdirection that’s almost Harperesque in scope. You see, in my opinion, the very worst part of budget day had nothing to do with the federal budget at all. It was the other thing that happened on budget day that really has me worried.
That other thing, the news item that got buried by all the budget kerfuffle, was the report from the chief electoral officer, Marc Mayrand, who called the robocall scandal an assault on democracy and “absolutely outrageous.” That report cited instances in 200 ridings across the country.
That report may have been buried by the budget report, but it shouldn’t be ignored. With that many electoral contests potentially tainted by misdirection and fraud, we shouldn’t be wasting our time debating the merits of the penny. We should be talking about whether or not we have a legitimate government in Ottawa right now.
We should be talking about this long and hard, on the street, in coffee shops, on social media forums, around the water cooler. Everywhere.
Because, if we do not have a legitimately elected government in Ottawa, we have to ask ourselves, as patriotic Canadians, what are we going to do about it?
And that, my friends, is a very scary and dangerous road.
Neil Horner is assistant editor at The News.
