Lots of budget analysis going on today.
And it seems, all things considered, conservatives are pretty happy with the budget's contents, except perhaps for the government's unwillingness to cutback on its spending.
Here, for example, are some of the new Tory spending initiatives announced yesterday:
* $21 million to "retain top science leaders" with 20 research chairs.
Hey that’s about $1 million a chair. “Top science leaders” must really need to sit down a lot.
* $10-million for the operations of the Canadian Light Source research synchrotron in Saskatoon.
Synchrotron? Oh yeah, I think I saw one of those on Star Trek. Seems to me it was some sort of time machine. If that’s the case, I hope the Tories use this synchrotron to go back in time to the days when Stephen Harper was actually a conservative. (Sorry I couldn't resist.)
* $9 million to improve the safety of laboratories dealing with viruses and bacteria.
This really scares me.
* $25 million to provide Canadians with better information on the links between environmental contaminants and illness.
Who cares about “environmental contaminants”? The real problem are those deadly killer viruses and mutant bacteria escaping from our laboratories. I blame our “top science leaders.”
* $12 million over two years to enhance law enforcement within Canada’s National Parks.
Hear that Yogi? No more stealing picnic baskets. Mr. Ranger is now enhanced.
* $25 million to help make the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Torch Relays a symbol of community and national pride.
Yes nothing gives me more national pride than watching people run around the country carrying a burning stick in their hand.
Of course, some might say this is money well spent. And one of those people is Liberal leader Stephane Dion.
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9 comments:
If it's the Paralympics it won't be people *running* with a burning stick in their hand.
Buckley died today and so has fiscal conservatism, it would seem...
Go Ron Paul!
What an empty and pathetic budget. You can't be serious when you say "conservatives" are happy with this budget. It's still a socialists utopia.
And on top of the gigantic waste of money the Olympics already is [look at that, let's drown a few billion in a 2 week party, but ignore homelessness in the same city], we waste $25 million more on Torch relays.
raphael alexander:
Gerry was probably given strict orders to say that "Conservatives" are happy with this budget...
We don't actually seem to have any conservatives in government in Canada anymore..
Thank god there is no $$$ in there to study polar bear DNA in Nunavut.
Had it been a truly conservative budget, we would have an election now and the Tories would likely lose it. The problem, Gerry, is you cannot advocate a government act like conservative when there simply aren't enough conservatives in the public to win. Blame on what you want, but the reality is most Canadians are not conservative. Even though there are many good things about less government, the public generally believes that an activist government is a good thing since that is what people are use to and many are afraid of the unknown. Lets remember more freedom also means more responsibility and some people don't like the latter. It is no different than adults in their mid 20s still living at home even though they would have more freedom living on their own.
Gerry, you should be ecstatic. At the last minute, they pulled out the "$175 Million Innovative Manufacturing Companies of less than 10 persons working on the 2nd floor of a transit accessible building made of red brick Environmental Research Fund" as well as the "$240 Million Endowment Fund for the protection of Green Trees more than 36 years old with depressed foilage" Rehabilitation Investment Fund.
Geesh, you're hard to please.
$25 million to provide Canadians with better information on the links between environmental contaminants and illness.
Gerry said:
"Who cares about “environmental contaminants”?"
Well, for one - the CHRC!
Perhaps you haven't yet read, in their entirety, their two most recent research "reports"?
http://www.chrc-ccdp.ca/research_program_recherche/page2-en.asp
I'm sure the CHRC may be thrilled about this latest and additional gift to all enemies of individual rights, responsibilities and liberties, from the governing Harper "Conservatives", as will the multitudes of their counterpart advocates of all other Phony "Rights" that depend on the CHRC as not only one of their sources of "information" but also the enforcer for their "social justice" Crusades based on a steady flow of pseodoscientific Epidemiological "studies" that will keep supplying more "links" than Harper (or anyone else) could possibly dream of (or dream up) - as long as that taxpayer-derived funding to do so continues to flow!
DO note the "Definitions of Disability" segment, within one of these CHRC "Environmental Sensitivities" research reports:
http://www.chrc-ccdp.ca/research_program_recherche/esensitivities_legal_hypersensibilitee/page3-en.asp#31
Excerpt:
International approaches to definitions of disability in human rights protection vary in their reliance on medical diagnoses and symptoms. At one end of this spectrum are the Canadian and Australian approaches, in which a very broad definition of disability is adopted.3 As a result of this, complainants are required to provide minimal medical evidence to establish that they qualify as persons with a disability, and individuals with environmental sensitivities do not need to prove the veracity of their condition. In fact, the courts have specifically held that the inability of the medical community to diagnose a condition or identify its cause does not affect whether an individual has a disability, so long as its triggers can be identified.4 Instead, the analysis is meant to focus on the individual’s accommodation needs and the behaviour of the employer or service provider.5
So, Gerry, I'd imagine that along with the CHRC and its' provincial "Human Rights" counterparts, it's ideological subsidiaries like "Disability Rights" and all "linked" advocates and beneficiaries... WILL VERY MUCH care about "environmental contaminants"...as long as there continues to be taxpayer-derived funding up for grabs.
I hope you now know exactly WHAT and WHO (pun intended) this funding from the Harper government WILL benefit and promote?
Hint: it sure ain't gonna benefit or promote "Health" - or the likes of Ezra Levant, Mark Steyn/Macleans, or any equally non-malicious but politically-incorrect consumers of any LEGAL product that is likely already subject to government manufacturing/packaging regulations, importation regulations, retail regulations and taxation [including punitive "sin" taxation].
It might promote and advance the lucrative creation of multitudes of additional "hypersensitive hypochondriacs of convenience" and provide further empowerment and enrichment benefits to the Exploiters of the Nouveau-Disabled who are also the creators of the crises they actually pose to our entire society, however?
Was that a sufficient "short" answer to your question, Gerry? If you'd like the fuller and more detailed answer, with supporting research references, we'd have to discuss this under less restrictive circumstances...I'm up for it at your request.
Oh, yes...and here's one more person who might care very much about "environmental contaminants"!
Excerpted from the Western Standard published debate between Karen Selick and Michael Coren on the topic of "Smoking out property rights":
========
From: Michael Coren
To: Karen Selick
Date: May 17, 2004
Subject: re: Smoking in public places
I'm afraid I don't share this fetish about alleged "statist" governments. You agree that smoking is unhealthy, but you don't mind other people killing themselves. Surely this is a misunderstanding of the meaning of freedom. I had Jeffrey Wigand, on whom The Insider movie is based, on my television show and it's clear that big tobacco targets minorities, the young and the poor. No free market here, no genuine equality of freedom. The educated and the middle class have far more time, background and inclination to consider their health than do others. The right to be helped to give up smoking outweighs the right to smoke and die in agony in a cancer ward. I'm less concerned with property rights than I am with the right to live a dignified and healthy life. You also say you ban smoking in your office. What about the employee rights of those who work there?
(emphases mine)
===========
Michael Coren, as evidenced by his own words, seems to obviously be a big fan of the "Human Rights" crowd, their Ottawa Charter [for Health Promotion] re-definition of Health, the "Disability Rights" crowd and their all-inclusive definition of "Disability/Disabled" as reiterated by CHRC "research reports" on the subject of "Environmental Sensitivities" , the ability that the above combination of enemies of individual rights, responsibilities and liberties has been given by alteration of such definitions (and we shouldn't overlook their re-definition of "addictive" in recent years to now encompass the formerly different definition for "habit-forming" as well?!).
As a matter of fact, others (Green Party Federal Election Candidates) reiterated Coren's "position" during a federal election phase, such as here:
http://www.eastnorthumberland.com/archives/news/news2005/December/051221hc.html
"And we have a right to grow up, grow old and die healthy.
Our health care system focuses on diagnosis and treatment. Let’s shift toward health promotion."
- Pat Lawson, GREEN PARTY
(I wonder how "they" (ie: Coren and his ideologically-allied Green Party Candidates) would propose enforcing the "Protection" of anyone's Right to "Die Healthy"?? Similarly what will they do with someone who might be in the unfortunate position of being terminally ill with an incurable illness (likely chronic and age-related in the majority of cases)??)
...and here's another Harper Government funding appreciator!:
http://vote.onlinedemocracy.ca/postnuke/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=219
Green Party Candidate Tom Lawson had a different take on the issue. He believes more people are coming to the health care system already sick. He called for legislation to improve air, water and soil quality. He wants to see in increase in organic food farms.
"We have the right to grow up, grow old, and die healthy," he said.
(I guess Tom Lawson Green Party Candidate advocates (like Coren?) WANT pseudo-disabled (no proof required, folks...get in line!) people coming to the health care system when they are NOT sick [yet but might be some day]? Ie: they advocate a health care system primarily designed and for [only?] the [currently] healthy [by their "Ottawa Charter" definition]?)
Sweet, ain't it? We're gonna need a LOT more funding for monopolized "Public" Health and Healthcare subject to THOSE kind of fantasies????
I guess Michael Coren would also have to support the prohibition of all scented products in so-called "Workplaces" and "Public Places", to remain ideologically consistent and in similarly perfect philosophical alliance with his Green Party, "Human Rights", "Disability Rights" and "Non-Smoker's Rights" Socialistic Counterparts who ALL despise and denounce Property Rights?
Are true rights and freedoms "indivisible" or not? I'd suspect the proof is already visible in the pudding we call Canada, under governance by Steyn's "Lord Jell-O" and his ideologically-Confused merry band of Politically Correct socialists.
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