- Flaherty is full of non-sense.

Recession fight leads to deepening federal deficit, Corporate tax receipts plunge 79%, October 23, 2009
http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2009/10/23/federal-deficit.htmltab 79

The things mentioned by Flarherty, "paying down debt in good times, maintaining a prudent financial system and reducing taxes" are referring to a time when Flarerty, Harper and the Cons were very emphatically stating there would be no deficit and as he calls it in "good times". To say now that they were prudently preparing for the recession is total bunk.

They were done not because they were the right thing to do but to buy votes (e.g., with reducing the GST 2 points, as has been revealed by the Con's). Reducing taxes is proving to be a disastrous thing to have done as can be seen from the "78.6 per cent plunge in corporate tax revenues" - a result that is totally predictable for a recession. It is worse because once taxes are reduce it is very difficult to increase them, which was part of the Harper strategy in reducing them in the first place.

The Harper spending, now and before the recession, represents huge increases and it simply is not "maintaining a prudent financial system". Paying down debt is generally something I agree with, especially when you have extra cash on hand. However, where the cost of borrowing is very low it is very questionable to totally eliminate the surplus by paying down debt, and certainly, it is far more prudent to reserve some for contingencies, e.g., economic downturn, which is one of the things that was on the books and they eliminated, or investing in Canada's future through various social programs, especially aimed at our youth. If they were preparing us for a recession that ought to have increased the financial buffers that were built in, but they totally eliminated them, and as I said simply to buy votes. This is not 'prudent financial'.

The only 'financial plan' Harper, Flaherty and the Con's have, other than converting our tax dollars into their own spending fund, is to do nothing and wait until the US and other Western economies start to pick up and drag us up with them, then take credit. It may be 'prudent' for them but disastrous for Canada and the future of our children.

Lloyd MacIlquham cicblog.com/comments.html