O Canada hides issues

 
Prime Minister Stephen Harper played a great game of smoke-and-mirrors in delivering the throne speech and a day later, the federal budget.

Rather than having meaningful discussions over the budget and what is and isn’t included, the country spent its time debating the merits of changing the national anthem to a more politically correct version.

A few days later, Harper, bowing to public outrage, withdrew the planned alteration to O Canada.

By then the budget talk had all but disappeared.

Harper essentially got a free ride from the public.

The good: lowering corporate taxes could help business in the region become more competitive, while a $100 million green transformation in the forest industry will also help.

The bad, according to NDP MP Bruce Hyer, is that the budget won’t create jobs, spending increases by $22 billion and employment insurance premiums, which businesses must pay, will rise in 2011 to the maximum $19 billion allowed under federal legislation.

Perhaps the lower corporate taxes and the higher EI rates will negate each other.

But now is not the time to break even. Now is the time when Canadians want to go back to work. With stimulus spending about to come to an end, long-term jobs, not short-term fixes, is what the country and its workers need.