What's wrong with paying off our debt or cutting taxes so Canadians all benefit, asks Rondi Adamson

Toronto Star ^ | 09/25/05 | Rondi Adamson

[Heartofsong83]

What's wrong with paying off our debt or cutting taxes so Canadians all benefit, asks Rondi Adamson

Before we even discuss how our federal budget surplus might be spent, we have to try and figure out whether that surplus is more than $3 billion (announced by Finance Minister Ralph Goodale in the spring), or $1.6 billion (announced this week). Funny how those projections keep changing — not "ha! ha! funny," of course.

Even funnier still was how Prime Minister Paul Martin, in May, was eager to sell out his one positive legacy to Canadians.

With the deficit tackled, and taxes going down, he was willing to trade 10 years of work to the NDP, by committing a whole lot of money his Liberal government suddenly found.

This, in order to buy support for his minority government by agreeing to the NDP agenda of raising taxes and pumping money into various social programs that Martin had previously — as finance minister — taken money out of. Confused? I am.

Most notable among the social programs discussed by the Liberal/NDP axis was health care, a system that would benefit more from a private tier than from public money. Also discussed was national daycare, the thought of which should make good people shudder.

Shouldn't Canadian parents themselves decide how best to look after their families? Not to mention that some of us object to the idea of, de facto, encouraging parents to not stay home with their children.

The bottom line is, why must our surpluses always be "spent?" The fact that our country is paying off its debt — now standing at $499.9 billion — is a good thing. Why not use the surplus to further pay down the debt, which represents, in the 2004-2005 fiscal year, just under 39 per cent of the economy. Ten years ago, it represented nearly 69 per cent of the economy. This is a trend we would do well to continue.

Or why not use the surplus to cut taxes? We might also consider being a sovereign nation with a military. That will take more than a few billion dollars, to be sure. But you have to start somewhere.

It is a mockery that Canada does not even have appropriate warships to get to relatively insignificant Hans Island. If we won't invest in our own defence, we had better learn to stop being uppity with the United States, since we will need them to defend us when the inevitable happens and we are attacked.

The Liberals believe in nothing other than maintaining power. Prioritizing anything seems off their radar, even fixing the famous "democratic deficit" Martin cited when he became Prime Minister.

The Conservatives are still talking about forcing an election. Some NDP members are calling their alliance with the Liberals "fluid," due to the proposed reintroduction of corporate tax cuts.

For people who worry about the cost of an election, think about it — it would cost the equivalent of about a day's worth of spending of the Liberal/NDP variety.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rondi Adamson is a Toronto writer whose work has been published in the Christian Science Monitor, Wall Street Journal Europe and USA Today.

[goldstategop]

"Cost of an election?" An election sounds redundant in Canada. The Liberals are going to be returned to power so Canadians might as well wait the full five years.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[munin]

Good article, I agree with most everything you say, I think that our national debt should be considered like a line of credit at the bank and any surplusautomaticly go to pay it down, and any new spending should have to be justified.
Anyway, as our debt is mostly in foreign currency, the reduction is mostly due to the increase in the c$ and not from the government actually writing a cheque. Not so?