EXCLUSIVE Advance Copy of Jim Flaherty’s Financial Update
Bunker Text Intercept Op LilyCheung 091119 2216est Source HoC Cover DDPE6 Noencryption
Text Begins
Denise, I just got hold of Jim’s draft. Jesus Christ, how many times to I have to tell you: DON’T LET HIM DO HIS OWN WRITING WHEN HE’S ON THE ATOMOXETINE. You KNOW how he gets. Just read this mess.
Mr Speaker, I am pleased to finally stand before this House and and come clean about what we’re doing about the economy. God knows it hasn’t been easy making our strategy look coherent, but that, quite frankly, just proves what my mom always used to say: “Oh, what a tangled web we weave something something something deceive.” So let’s just lay it out for you.
You’ve probably been wondering why we caved in so quickly on the stimulus package, and cheerfully committed the government to a fifty billion deficit after the Liberals finally finished digging Canada out of the hole Mulroney dug. Well, it’s pretty simple.
We like spending money on infrastructure. Every government does. It’s not abstract, it’s STUFF – roads, buildings, bridges, things you can put your name on, little signs, logos, that kind of thing. It’s also money you can direct to the ridings you like best, and projects you can funnel to the firms and suppliers that support you. The Liberals had it down to a “T”, especially in Quebec. Let it never be said that we Conservatives are slow learners. (Pause for laughter).
But most important: it’s money that you only spend once. No long term spending. No actual programs or policy commitments. Just a big wad of cash you spend quickly on the people and places you want to reward.
And when that spending is done, we can sit back, and furrow our brows, and spread our hands helplessly, and say to the people of Canada: Look what the Liberals made us do. We’re now fifty billion dollars in debt. Where, o where, are we ever going to recover that money from? Gosh. Regretfully, friends, it looks like we’re going to have to reluctantly start shutting all those programs and services that we really don’t think government should be involved in anyway.
CBC. Regional economic development. Aboriginal programs. Environmental research. Arts. Food inspection and monitoring. Health Canada. Women’s programs. Foreign Aid. Advocacy support. Training. Broadcast regulation. All those tiresome regulatory agencies. All the things that the private sector should be doing, or that shouldn’t be done at all in a truly Conservative world.
That’s it in a nutshell, friends. We’ve created a mountain of debt we can blame on someone else, but it’s one-time debt that buys political favour: and now we have a great excuse to carve away everything we despise – sorrowfully, of course. (Pause for laughter).
And the beauty of it is that if the honorouble opposition miraculously gets their shit together and wins an election – THEY’RE stuck with OUR debt.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
See what I mean? If he stood up in the House and read this shit, they’ll be serving us up in the Parliamentary Cafeteria along side the seal. Get hold of every draft of this you can find and burn it. I’ll get Lucian on a rewrite. And on another note, could you get me the name of that Chinese-looking cleaning woman who was tidying up Jim’s office last night? She was kinda cute.
Mike
Funny, but how does the left get away with both lamenting the death of Keynsian stimulus thinking and slamming the Cons for this? The coalition-wannabes made it very clear that they had big spending plans. It’s like Dr. Dawg complaining about both Western imperialism in Afghanistan and handing prisoners over to them.
The left used to have some actual ideas, but now it seems happy just to sit back and take endless disjointed potshots.
Yeah, darn that “the left”, eh?
I’m complimenting the Conservatives on a most adept strategy, Peter. Do you actually disagree with my assessment, or are you simply taking a disjointed potshot?
I pride myself on taking the most jointed of potshots. But hey, do you know whether this is the funding source for all the roadwork driving us nuts in this city? I’ve never looked forward to winter so much in my life. What’s life without a few potholes to keep us in touch with our humanity?
I used to pride myself on making the most joints of pot, but it’s been a long, long time.
Peter: Some of us live in Bloc ridings where nothing is happening! Enjoy your traffic jams!
Balby: I agree with your funny assessment, but then again,it is well known that facts have a left-wing bias.
facts have a left-wing bias
But truth is conservative. There is actually some validity to what you say, SQ, although perhaps not in the sense you meant.
Thats what happens when the country has two main left wing parties. The federal liberal party and the Tory Wannabees.
Who ever heard of a Tory government going into a deficit situation by giving money away like bailing out Ontarios two american car manufacturers.
I’m skeptical – he didn’t once mention the separatists or the socialists.
They have an application that inserts that automatically into every paragraph in the final draft – you usually don’t see it in the early drafts.
Any one for a ‘draft’ – I hear its on stageleft.
@Peter – I think it’s important to know WHAT the money is being spent on. A massive ad campaign, a tonne of roads and creating a well-funded mafia hardly represent good investments in this economy.
Once upon a time, when Keynes proposed deficit spending, he probably didn’t think people like the Cons would be so cynical about it and maximize the personal political gain they would get from it.
That’s the difference.
Liam, I’m with you on the ads. I want to throw a glass thorugh the TV screen when I see the CDIC, the body responsible for insuring bank deposits, spend a bundle to tell me they are making my life better by insuring bank deposits. But c’mon, you’re complaining about modern times. Sometimes o tempora, o mores is more appropriate than %$^*#@* Cons! And Keynes knew more about the reality of party politics than anyone. After all, he was a disillusioned architect of Versailles.
But a well-funded mafia? This is news. That won’t help Stevie in the polls at all.
Of course it will. And these infrastructure projects are going ahead without environmental assessments, proper tendering, the usual red tape New Conservatives hate because it means their supporters don’t automatically get all of our money with which to pad their pockets. It’s a scam. Pure and simple. And they’ll get away with it.
As for the larger picture, the New Conservatives wanted power in order to make government dysfunctional. A government that doesn’t work, works for the New Conservative Party of Canada.
Oh that’s perfect, sooey. The stimulus was largely the result of international agreement (brokered by Obama) during last year’s crisis, but you would like the re-paving of roads and repairing of bridges to be held up for three years for community consultations and environmental assessments? How Canadian.
“The stimulus was largely the result of international agreement (brokered by Obama) during last year’s crisis.”
Really? I guess I missed that. I thought it was a decision of the Canadian government.
I guess you did miss that.
Thanks for providing a link to a single corporate website from last April that makes no reference whatsoever to Obama, and describes an IMF policy position being articulated several months after Canada’s stimulus package. I’ll provide you with a link to photostats of newspaper coverage of the Great Boston Policemen’s Strike if you want.
Can someone please give Peter a fresh supply of flies off of which he can tear the wings?
He’s behaving very badly lately and I think a diversion program is necessary. His toxic hauteur, unmitigated as usual by additional information, has been ubiquitous of late.
“Toxic hauteur”. Now that is an excellent phrase. And I realize why I enjoy Peter’s participation here so much – “toxic hauteur” is not a bad description of what I try for myself, except mine tends to take a more florid mien.
I think your style is more eclectic than that.
Given that Peter and I broke irremediably over the Palin thing last November, I thought I’d link to this
Now, that’s blogging: Breaking through the tired narratives to say something new:
The really beautiful thing about the culture war, from an entertainment standpoint, is that it is fundamentally irresolvable. There isn’t a concrete set of issues involved, where in theory both sides could give in a little and find middle ground, reach some sort of compromise.
That’s because there are no issues at all.
It’s hard out there for a Conservative.
Personally I strive for a glowering polysyllabic wit. On occasion, I manage to achieve it, almost, however, in spite of myself.
balb:
I guess were both suffering from memory loss. You’ve forgotten the whole thing and I forgot the agreement was actually brokered by Bush.
I guess it’s tricky defending Conservative government stimulus spending when you’re a Conservative.
Not as tricky as being generally in favour of stimulus spending in principle, but suddenly opposed when it is Conservative.
Who’s opposed? If anything, I was offering consolation to your shorter sighted Conservative confreres who see this as a betrayal of principles: I was pointing out that it’s a politically imaginative means to achieve conservative policy ends. And despite the satirical frame, I think that the scenario I described in the post is exactly what’s going on.
I’m not big on the capital C, still less on the so-called confreres of which you speak, but I musn’t deprive sooey of her fun. So we’re all agreed, then? Stevie’s stimulus spending to fund a new mafia is needed to prevent a banking collapse and depression?
Dunno. I can only assess a range of potential outcomes – lacking your gift of faith, I have less taste for absolutes.
Not as tricky as being generally in favour of stimulus spending in principle, but suddenly opposed when it is Conservative.
I think it’s the Conservative ineptitude with respect to financial reporting and deficit projection that’s the issue now…hell, it was the issue last year.
And the 100 million dollar Conservative Party of Canada publicity campaign, brought to us courtesy of the taxpayer, of course.
I’ve always been against stimulus spending. Counter-cyclical spending to ease the plight of those most affected by market dislocation, sure, but nothing like this…which is mostly psychological manipulation to keep people shopping.
Whatever teaches those darned terrorists a lesson.
[...] The Bunker, channelling an imaginary Jim Flaherty, November 19th: We’ve created a mountain of debt we can blame on someone else, but it’s one-time debt that buys political favour: and now we have a great excuse to carve away everything we despise – sorrowfully, of course. [...]