Thursday, December 2, 2021

WRITING CHEQUES ON TAXPAYERS' ACCOUNT

   If there’s one thing we know Canada’s government is good at, it’s handing out cheques. Having amassed more debt than all previous prime ministers combined, it may be Justin Trudeau’s greatest skill.

  So when he landed in British Columbia to survey the flooding wreckage — much of which might not have happened had his government been as interested in building dikes as it is in flying off to climate summits — we knew the money moment was coming. And sure enough, there it was: “We need to rebuild more resilient infrastructure that’s going to be able to handle 100-year storms every few years, because that seems to be the pattern we are on,” the prime minister said at a press conference with Premier John Horgan. “It’s going to be expensive, but it would be far more expensive to do less or not to do enough.”

Heard those remarks before? Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said much the same when she maintained Canada “can’t afford not to” throw billions on billions at COVID relief measures. Banal platitudes are a politician’s best friend.

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