Dear sir:
After another year of Liberal rule in Ottawa, and bi-weekly episodes from our MP extolling the virtues of his government, I hope, Mr. Editor, that the other side of the coin can be looked at by the public.
Finance minister Paul Martin, in his spring budget, reflects the so-called elimination of the “yearly deficit.”
A count back reveals that 37 tax increases since the Liberals took power in 1993 no doubt had a significant effect on the elimination of the annual deficit, not to mention the $9 billion overcharge in the Employment Insurance fund–taken from the backs of the poor and the unemployed.
Was this $9 billion redirected to the general fund in the “balanced budget” of Mr. Martin’s deficit elimination?
Unfortunately, there’s no reduction in the federal debt, which has spiralled by $9.7 billion since March 31, 1996 to staggering total of $588.5 billion.
It is extremely sad to note that the taxpayers are still forking out $45 million a year in interest rates on this huge debt. This interest rate, according to the financial experts, represents 71.1 percent of the yearly “gross domestic product” flowing down the drain, with absolutely nothing to show for it.
This $45-billion-a-year interest on the national debt, accumulated equally by Liberal and Conservative federal governments over the past 30 years, would completely operate all financial business transactions for the provinces of Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta for one full year, and each and every year (past, present, and future) at this comparable rate of interest.
In addition, it would eliminate the provincial debts of Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick. It would further pay for at least three years’ of university tuition for four million Canadian students, and it would give to an estimated 100,000 poor children in Canada an annual “endowment” of $30,000.
In an interview following his budget speech, Mr. Martin claimed he will begin to reduce the national debt by some mythical figure of $3 billion a year. At this rate, and according to my arithmetic, it would take 196 years for the Liberals to eliminate this debt, not including the billions of taxpayers’ dollars for interest rates pouring down the cesspool of political incompetence and double-talk, and draining into “beaurocratic obscurity.”
What a collossal waste. What a crying shame to our future and present generations.
Only when each and every Canadian taxpayer is made fully aware of this financial “atrocity,” and the subsequent removal of the governing party by outraged Canadians against the perpetrators of this monstrous financial crime to the Canadian people, will justice be done.
Yours truly,
A.J. MacFarlane
Press secretary,
Reform Party of Canada
(Kenora-Rainy River)
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