Mark This Day – I Agree with Monte Solberg
So I am watching Question Period today and I see my boy Michael Ignatieff get up and question the not-so-new Tory government on their inaction towards students.
You know, having consulted the student groups and the university administrations, I have a pretty good grasp as to what the students want.
They wanted no taxes on bursaries, which they got.
They wanted a tax deduction on textbooks, which they got.
Lastly, they wanted a dedicated transfer for post-secondary education, which is part of fixing Stephen Harper’s kitten the fiscal imbalance.
So when my boy Michael Ignatieff railed against the Tories for wanting to respect provincial jurisdiction and attacked them for disrespecting students, Monte was quick to answer… (along the lines of)
what we are not gonna do is say one thing and then cripple the provinces by cutting 25 billion dollars in transfers to the provinces.
To be fair, Dion was not part of that government when the cuts happened, but the Liberals had 10 years and 10 budgets to fix what they did. They didn’t.
If Harper delivers on fiscal imbalance later next month, he will fulfill every single demand from the students. The Prime Minister cannot freeze provincial tuition rates.
This is not an issue of strength for us.
I hope I never agree with Monte Solberg ever again.
You know, having consulted the student groups and the university administrations, I have a pretty good grasp as to what the students want.
They wanted no taxes on bursaries, which they got.
They wanted a tax deduction on textbooks, which they got.
Lastly, they wanted a dedicated transfer for post-secondary education, which is part of fixing Stephen Harper’s kitten the fiscal imbalance.
So when my boy Michael Ignatieff railed against the Tories for wanting to respect provincial jurisdiction and attacked them for disrespecting students, Monte was quick to answer… (along the lines of)
what we are not gonna do is say one thing and then cripple the provinces by cutting 25 billion dollars in transfers to the provinces.
To be fair, Dion was not part of that government when the cuts happened, but the Liberals had 10 years and 10 budgets to fix what they did. They didn’t.
If Harper delivers on fiscal imbalance later next month, he will fulfill every single demand from the students. The Prime Minister cannot freeze provincial tuition rates.
This is not an issue of strength for us.
I hope I never agree with Monte Solberg ever again.
par / by Anthony à / at 6:12 p.m.
8 Commentaires:
So in hindsight what would YOU have done Antonio? How would you have addressed Canada's crippling deficit?
Monte Solberg is a bloody hypocrite. If he and his Reform buddies had been in charge in the 90's the cuts would have been tougher and deeper.
Further your claim that the Liberals did "nothing" in the ten years that followed Canada's belt tightening is utter crap. Transfer payments have risen pretty well constantly for the last ten year. Its only because of LIBERAL governments who have all but restored transfers to the provinces that Stephen Harper can even bother making the claim that he might be able to "fix" the myth known as the "fiscal imbalance".
This is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever read. When the Liberal government was making ANY sort of cuts to just about anything whatsoever, Solberg, Manning, Harper and the rest of them were advocating for deeper cuts. Most days they still are.
Secondly, that the Quebec government chooses to spend money that it could use on education on things like opening foreign embassies to appease the nationalist hordes is purely of its own choosing. Further, Quebec has the lowest tuition fees in the country anyway.
My guess is that a directed education transfer would be unwelcome in la capitale as having "strings" attached - surely an "insult" to the "nation", so to speak.
The fiscal imbalance remains a crock of BS. Or, if it is such a problem, maybe the provinces could cede jurisdiction for PSE to the feds, which kind of makes sense given the mobility of Canadian students anyway.
As early as 2000, the government had a 17 billion dolalr surplus.
The students are asking to restore the cuts the Tories started and the Liberals continued.
That's what addressing the fiscal imbalance is all about.
The provinces have opposed at every turn, earmarking such funds, preferring block transfers which they can spend as they please.
The nationalist whiners in la capitale can't have it both ways. When we try to send money for childcare they want to spend it on highways, and when we tried to spend money on education (e.g. Millenium Scholarships) they demanded it be spent on the Health system instead.
The fiscal imbalance is about weak-kneed con artists in all of our provincial capitals who do not have the political courage to raise taxes so they demand Ottawa do it for them.
Meanwhile, even after ten years of fiscal sanity the federal debt-per-capita is still overwhelmingly higher than the provincial debt-per-capita.
It can just as easily be argued that there exists a fiscal imbalance going the other way. The feds have the lion's share of debt.
And - as Jack Layton loves to brag - we apparently put $1 Billion into post-secondary education last year. Yet my tution went up 12%. Sending money to the provinces is bullshit, b/c it never goes where it's supposed to.
when did the services start going to shit?
when did tuition start to skyrocket?
If you guessed 1992, when the cuts started, youre right.
If you also guessed after 1995, that it got worse, you would also be right.
Coincidence?
I think not.
The fiscal imbalance is real.
Hmmmm... because the feds were carrying the debtload and the provinces weren't???
Mark, don't even bother. Antonio is always acting the apologist for the juvenile nationalists in this province. Antonio, Marsha would like to know whether you've given up your grit membership in order to launch that journalism career you were telling her about. Hell, I'd like to know, too.
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