When do we get our stimulus, Mr. Harper? I believe the answer is: April 1
with portions being small and not too filling.

As Stephen Harper continues his good time feel good campaign of showing up at barely functional industrial plants to inform the Canadian public that it’s not as bad as it looks. The rest of us…. and I mean the rest of the Canadian public is wondering:so where is our great initiative?

Mr. Harper’s rosy outlook, odd in comparison to the south of the border Obama : “hold on to the wife and kids… it’s gonna get very bad approach”, begs the question: what’s our elected bodies doing?

Take into consideration this: while governments across the world are giving its citizen’s breaks.
Our government, on the local, provincial, and federal levels, miraculously finds the need to start gouging the Canadian electorate.

For your consideration:

The January 27 budget provided a 40 billion dollar stimulus over two years. And Ottawa claimed it would boost economic growth by 1.6 percent for 2009 and another 0.2 percent the year after that. Many economists are skeptical that this is will be enough.

Even, Pierre Duguay, dep-governor at the bank of Canada, after meeting with the House of Commons finance committee, raised the alarm bells of the urgent need to facilitate consumer spending and ease credit debt. And what actions have we seen from our elected bodies?

Price hikes on government services.

And here’s just a few:

Ontario’s Go Transit just passed a rate hike. Oh yes, you green commuter, you’re now getting dinged an extra 25 cents per ride. And $10.00 more per monthly pass to support public transit.
Montreal transit also hiked it fares…. including adding $2.25 on monthly fares. Je me souviens.

City property taxes have been hiked across the board: 8.3 percent to possible 10.3 in Vancouver. 7.3 percent in Edmonton. 4 percent in Toronto. This with the real estate market bubble bursting. Why are we paying more for property that’s worth less?

Government services have increased their fees as well. Let’s look at Canada Post. Up goes the 52 cent stamp to 54 cents. And let’s double the costs of shipping via the internet. Canada Post did when it marked up the postage costs of envelopes popular with goods bought on the world wide web.

What about the much speculated 25% tuition hikes being proposed over the next few years at university and college programs? It appears that during an economic downturn, post-secondary enrollment dramatically increases ….as out of work Canadians try to upgrade themselves for the next new economy. Universities, as a matter of course, jack up enrollment fees to stem the tide. Take that down and out.

Rather mind boggling. Not only are Canadians told to wait till April 1 before we get to see the mere morsels of the Harper economic plan. But we will have to pay more for the service in the mean time.

But don’t worry, Mr. Harper…. Everything tastes better when you’re hungry.

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Tags: government services, price hikes, rant, stephen harper

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 25th, 2009 at 8:15 am and is filed under Economy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.