There's not a hint of vision in it.

Building a leading edge green industry, promoting research and education, getting serious about poverty… all off the PM's map of opportunity for a new, just, more equitable, happier Canada.

I hope the opposition poleaxe the minority government and introduce some more genuinely based principles of democracy. Same as, same as… it's been shown fairly clearly not to work.

It's very basic and may allow the Liberals to support it. Too soon to tell. The devil is in the details. I'm skeptical about the spending committments and would have liked to see a much stronger focus on Green infrastructure. I wonder how much is really going to be new money. My husband has been working for almost two years to get funding from the Mountain Pine Beetle funding from the feds. It's all approved, he's got committments for matching funds from the province and municipality, it's been approved regionally and has been sitting on the Minister's desk for MONTHS. He's put HOURS of unpaid time into this and still we wait. I have to wonder if there won't be an announcement soon, as if this was part of the new funding, when it's actually funding they've budgetted for two years ago and have just been sitting on.

I think its a sham - a desperate ploy to buy support for the next election.

Billions in tax cuts, and announcing huge deficits. This is not the time for tax cuts. I don't believe that $150 more in the pockets of someone who makes $80K/year is going to do much, especially when it is bought at the cost of deeper debt for our future.

Was anything mentioned for education? For crushing student debt? For renewable energy? That is our future.

There were good things, too, but for some reason I can't believe that the spending on social housing was done in genuine care, especially when it is forwarded as a "make work progam for contractors."

Tax rebates for people who renovate their homes - how is this supposed to help the worst off? These kind of "people with enough money" tax rebates are a little off-puting to me. Although, I agree, it will get people to spend more money on contractors.

My synopsis of the budget? It's a good time to be a carpenter.

As I said in my thread, tax cuts are stupid, stupid stupid!!!!! 

Generally I thought the Liberals wrote a pretty good budget. The tax deduction for home improvements might well create jobs.

Apparently Danny Williams, having buried the hatchet, and even wished Fabian Manning best of luck as a Senator, is about to have to go on the war path again.  Smuggled into that budget is some kind of change to formulas again that will keep $1.5 billion dollars back from Newfoundland that we were expecting.  Danny called the budget an atomic bomb.  Looks like ABC is back:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2009/01/28/williams...

LOL!!  that whole 'subsidy for renovating your house' thing was tried in saskatchewan when the conservatives rose to power under grant devine... not only did it do NOTHING to stimulate the economy (it was a fake boom, as soon as the money evaporated, the contractors were back to square one), it put us on the path to creating a debt that i probably won't see paid off in my lifetime.

I think it is a pretty good budget. It seems to be pragmatic, as opposed to  ideological. It has money for farmers ( a good thing) as well as funding for  housing, infrastructure, and green initiatives, as well as other initiatives that are also consistent with  other nations in the world.

Will it cure the recession  immediately? No.

I will be doing some renovations and using the tax credit for this. This will employ at least 2 local people. These will be green reno's as well.

The tax cuts will, I think, result in  increased spending. If we have a few more dollars in our pockets at the end of each month, I believe we will spend it.

Guess I really don't fit in with the majority in  this discussion,

Why do people not use their names in  these discussions?

we have had situations where a person was stalked in real life because someone found out who they were, and it made their life very difficult, frances.  it is simply for privacy reasons that i don't post under my name.

 Hi Frances,

Some anonymity allows us to speak freely about more sensitive topics, and things do get heated at times.  Some of us know each other, and many of us don't hide completely.  But its nice to have the space.

Re:  Budget - There are some things about the budget that I smiled about - the home reno thing would get used in our house too.  Infrastructure is good.  But I agree the vision isn't there, and the bits & pieces are more to appease people than make a good change.  I am speaking mostly out of my contempt for Harper's government, and I don't see anything that gives me confidence.

I don't like tax cuts for this time of economic trouble.  Apparently for my family it would be $250 per year, and I'd rather see that go to job retraining (one thing I like about the budget) and social supports and green movement.

Harper has caved on several fronts to the pressure of the possible coalition, so in itself, this budget is better than a straight-up Harper dictatorship plan.

I can see Iggy leaving him to hang himself awhile longer.  Fair enough, but I'd like to see the Coalition too.

In my opinion, this budget does a lot to rescue the financial/banking sector from their folly but does very little to support the rest of us. Given that it was their hubris that resulted in this global crisis, why, oh why, are we relying on them to guide the way out? As Linda McQuaig says in this article, called the Financial elite have no shame:

Yes, let's imagine it, indeed.

This budget does very little for municipalities, especially the smaller ones who have no money to pony up, little for those who have or will become unemployed, encourages the strengthening of the corporate sector in ways that I believe we will all regret, and is focussed on tax cuts. Tax cuts don't stimulate economies, it's that simple.

Also, this budget still contains those factors (except for the public financing of our political parties) that created the furor at the end of November. I hope that, in the next few minutes, Mr. Ignatieff announces that the Liberals will not support it. It's time to draw the line on the anti-people policies of this government, imho.

 I'm watching Ignatieff on CBC live video... hasn't started yet....

I don't see what is pragmatic about it.

The purpose of the budget is, I would think, to remedy our economic situation. How can they propose a remedy without examining what caused this? This is simply a blind reaction with more than a touch of panic about it.

Creating a few local jobs is nice. But how does that deal with the problem that we have a whole new orientation of world trade taking place? With former third world countries becoming major players? And the US economy perhaps in just the early stages of a very long and perhaps permanent decline? How do we rebuild Canada to find a  place in the new world? How does this affect our relationship with the US?

Capitalism has suffered a heart attack. obviously, there is a problem with capitalism. This is not the first time, either. What is the problem? Do we need to look at some structural changes to capitalism? These are questions that nobody has even bothered to ask.

Yes, the budget will help some people. The help will probably be very temporary and cost one hell of a lot of borrowed money. That does not strike me as pragmatic. (unless you mean it will save Harper's government.)

graeme

 He just announced to support the budget with amendments around implementation, and regular monthly (or so) accounts of success, each of which is a confidence vote.

He found a middle ground?  I guess that is ok because there are some welcome parts of this budget (though he gives credit for them to the opposition).  But Harper stays as PM, despite a horrible track record.

Is there enough hope in these regular check-ups?

 Did you hear him, during questions, say this budget (with its concessions to the Coalition) has forced the Conservatives (ideologically) into "a deep sense of confusion, from which I hope it never recovers..."  - made me laugh!

He sounds like he wants a reason to bring down Harper, which is good, except I think he already has one.

 "the Coalition idea"... he just won't take any ownership of the thing...  he gives it credit for changing things, but he won't align himself with it as a next step.  He is talking about autonomy of the parties.

He keeps going to the idealistic view of the future and the downfalls of a Harper government, and steering away from a "Coalition".

It may be that Harper is now just hanging on to his job, and Ignatieff knows he's lost his power.  ????  not sure on that one

Have not looked closely at it but tax cuts are dumb - it I get some money it will go to pay down debts not for spending - and they do nothing for lower income people - they may keep their head above water but again will not encourage spending - and then again why incourage personal spending, is that not part of the problem - will there be  more money for creation of jobs?  The high tech got nothing - yes some roads might be built.

The problem is it will fool some of the people and if the conservatives are defeated it will help them in the next election - just as we know the idea of a liberals and NDP working together ( which I would like) will be the death of both -so the opposition is caught....  It is a budget that will fool people into supporting the conservatives.

 like handing a kid a quarter as you fire his dad.  He'll have fond memories of you and never understand what just happened...

THAT is a brilliant analogy, birthstone.  can i quote that??

 I'm honoured, Sigh!  I was pretty happy with it myself :)  occasional dazzling strokes of brilliance

Been thinkin'...  So, now, Iggy looks calm & steady, the red tories are p.o'd at Harper after everything, and Iggy didn't swing with Layton.  So he looks very middle of the road, very self-assured, very autonomous.  He talks a good business-liberal line, and yet was very passionate about looking after people today (unlike Harper was ever able to do).

If they force a Coalition, Layton will be brought under control and will have to work to keep the Libs happy.  Same with Duceppe/Bloc.  

If they force an election, it won't have been 'careless' (though the Cons will spin it every which way)

Either way, Iggy can now, honestly with some credibility, go after both the left and the right and pull that middle together.  The Left won't necessarily be pleased, but what option do they have presently?

I won't say I'm happy (Ignatieff doesn't inspire me much), but this is a good, sound move politically.  

And now I'm going to reno my house.

LOL!!  man, we just finished a huge reno in the basement... damn.

The reno rebate really isn't very good.  OK if you were going to do it anyways, but hardly significant enough if you weren't.

Details:

The 15-per-cent credit may be claimed on the por tion
of eligible expenditures exceeding $1,000, but not more
than $10,000, meaning that the maximum tax credit that
can be received is $1,350.

Eligible
• Renovating a kitchen, bathroom, or basement
• New carpet or hardwood floors
• Building an addition, deck, fence or retaining wall
• A new furnace or water heater
• Painting the interior or exterior of a house
• Resur facing a driveway
• Laying new sod

Ineligible
• Furniture and appliances (refrigerator, stove, couch)
• Purchase of tools
• Carpet cleaning
• Maintenance contracts (furnace cleaning, snow removal, lawn care, pool cleaning, etc.)

1,350?  thats it???

what a joke.

 I dont' spend much.  I wonder if they cover stuff at Habitat's ReStore.  We've got a bathroom to carve out of a laundry room, that's all, and we'll do it ourselves.  

As I said, like handing a kid a quarter...  (are we surprised?)

pfft... not at all surprised. 

Yes Matt is correct in the reno 'give back' is low - but the math suggests ( I am dependent on some economists for this so it may not work out this way) is that the every $1 creates a$1.50 - thus for those who were going to reno but were putting it off, this will encourage some spending.  For example we were thinking of adding a garage and drive way - 1350 might encourage us....

This is a better move than reduction in personal tax - which for every $1 in our pocket it will add .40 cents -  does nothing to stimulate the economy.

So the question is how good is this budget in doing what it says it wants to do - stimulate the economy?  There are real questions that it will.

The only good point was for social housing - much of it needs renewal and addition - again the issue is other government money - will it be there or is this an empty promise?

Now is a good time to be a carpenter.

I'm not sure that stimulating the economy makes a whole lot of sense. The reality is the US buys most of our goods. If the US does not recover, it can't buy. When that happens, you can stimulate our economy with unlimited cash, drugs, free sex and rock and roll. It won't work. We can ease the pain of the recession. We cannot end it. And that sort of logic should have been reflected in the budget.

Moeover, this is not 1929. We are not simply stimulating a basically strong economy. In fact, our industries have been dying for a long time, and industries in other countries like china have been outpacing us. Both Canada and the US have to adjust to massive changes in world trade and production.  Pumping money into dying industries does not do that.

The budget is simply an untargeted throwing of money at problems. Much of it is waste.

graeme

i gotta agree with graeme. 

any 'stimulus' of the economy based on this grant will evaporate as soon as the grant is gone, pan.  we tried this in saskatchewan 20 years or so ago, and it did nothing but cause a blip in the construction industry that of course meant lay offs as soon as the money was gone, and of course a bigger debt. 

It's like the government has a gambling addiction. Things were good, but we didn't cash out (switch to more sustainable industry). Now we've lost all our money, and we're remortgaging the house and our kids' future because we're sure that things are gonna get better real soon..

Its kind of scary, really. We don't even know how to produce our own goods anymore. Where will my little girl get a large selection of clothing if I can't continue to buy them at WalMart for $2 per item? You don't mean to tell me that all the textile plants in Canada are closed, do you?

I have an idea - we need to make snow and colder weather an exportable commodity. Then we'd be fixed.

The textile plants are gone BECAUSE you buy clothes at WalMart for $2.

RevMatt - was your sarcasm meter broken? lol.

A inability to emote is an inherent weakness of the medium. No, no, I wasn't being sarcastic this time. No seriously! I was being serious! Really! Sheeh that sounded a lot funnier in my head.

 Gadzooks - you just need to make liberal use of the smiley function 

and besides, it gave Matt a chance to feel all cool & brilliant for a few moments- something we all need sometimes 

:P to both of you :)

look- Now he's showing off his capable aptitude with postmodern emotical properties of a keyboard.

i think my brain exploded...

wazzat, Birthstone? I's confuzzled by the difficultyness of your wordage.

(More intelligent than the budget, mind you...)

 my dogs just came running over to see what was wrong with me as I started laughing uncontrollably :)

Here's a bandaid, Sigh.  Hope it helps!

(Such useful dialogue on a Friday morning!)

Well, with more time to digest the budget, I have an opinion of my own on it.  Get bent Canada.  I want out.

 but where Frommian??  where?

I'm distressed.  I think what Ignatieff has done has put in a Conservative/Blue Lib budget and sidelined only the extreme Harperism right plans.  Ignatieff has flattened all the voice that people had in the fall, and all the enthusiasm for using their voice.  

I don't think he is entirely wrong, but he didn't capitalize on the possibilities.  He's been the voice of reason, but too flat, with a sense of calming the waters.  The problem is that Peace is not just the absence of war (a quote - not sure who) - the calm we have now is just deflated hopes, beaten down, laid-off workers, CEO's wiping their brows... it is not peace, it is only quiet.

Its not even quiet Birthstone - it is despair.

According to Keirkegaard, when we abandon the ethical for the aesthetic, we are first met with feelings of exhileration and excitement - but these feelings are not sustainable in the aesthetic world, which lacks substance and promotes conformity. These feelings of excitement become despair, as we find it is not as easy to reclaim the ethical as it is to abandon it. Seeking to forego responsibility is an addictive behaviour. When you have a society addicted to the aesthetic, how do you convince them that it is that very thing they hold closest that is the cause of their despair?

Keirkegaard suggests the only solution is for those capable to create an "ethical sphere" and invite as many into it as possible, so that when the old system collapses there will be something new to seamlessly take its place. Actually, Keirkegaard thought we were all screwed and there was no hope for a return to the ethical sphere, so long as mass-media (in his day, the newspapers) continued to dictate our preferences, and we continued to be personal "experts" on endless numbers of topics that didn't concern us.

That's how I feel about the budget. A little existential.

 I was mulling over France the other day, and its willingness to strike loudly and in great numbers.  Their history is not a peaceful one, and if that is what has given them a taste for revolt, I am not eager to join in, but I admire the personal & collective confidence of the people.

i think that what this budget is going to do is what frommian said in another thread... it's going to snap conservatives out of this fantasy that harper is somehow a guy with leadership skills and vision.  we haven't had a real conservative party in this country since mackay sold them out to the reform party in an attempt to bring down the liberals.

my hope is that this whole schmozzle is going to make the conservative party give their heads a shake and realize that its time to get back to what the conservative party should stand for, rather than this whole 'do anything to get elected' mentality that they've slid into since mackays big lie.

 Ok, so Harper sold out the Conservatives to save his kingship.  
I would like to ask, what would a true small "C" conservative, Joe Clark-style budget have looked like for this era, and what good/bad would it have done?

well, i'm an NDPer, so i can only give you what i can guess...

my belief would be that a true conservative government would have made cuts right at the government level, rather than expanding government as harper has done.  government programs would have been cut, and the tax cuts would have come AFTER the budget was balanced. 

from what i know, true conservatives tend to buy into the notion that the governments only function should be to protect the citizens, so to that end we would have seen an increase in defence spending, if there was to be an increase in any government programs at all. 

a true LEADER would understand the whole 'mouse/ elephant dynamic' that we have with the USA, and so would not even attempt to 'stimulate the economy' by tossing out free cash to business, especially to the point where a deficit budget is incurred.  a leader would understand that until the USA is on the way up, there isn't enough money in the world that would be able to get canada back out first.

Exactly.  A true conservative group would basically say "we're going to do pretty much nothing at all.  We'll let the market correct itself.  If the Liberals and NDP don't like it, I guess they can form the Government, and their stimulus plan can sink the Country."  If they did anything, it might be extending E.I. to help people survive while the economy morphed into whatever it is going to be. 

Harper's true colours are shown during crisis.  Once his power is threatened, then he will give up any ideals he ever claimed to have.  He was worried he might lose power, so he changed his (supposed) fiscal policy to maintain power.  He was afraid he'd be thrown out, so he started stacking the Senate he claims to be opposed to.  He is supposedly a "strong" leader, cliaming Dion was not, yet he closed parliment with the help of the Queen of England, rather than face a confidence vote. 

Now, if his were a traditional PC party, they would have more wiggle room.  They too could impliment a lot of stimulus.  However, having put the budget first on their priority list, they would have more money, not having dropped the sales tax in a publicity stunt. 

If Harper were either a true small "C" conservative as he claims, he would be doing almost nothing.  If he were a Progressive Conservative (like Danny Williams), he would be spending night and day working on balancing the budget and bringing in new industry.  Instead he is a neo-conservative, and all he has been doing since taking power is playing silly power games to save his own neck.