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Kelly McParland: If EI is a crisis, we must be hard up for crises

Posted: May 26, 2009, 2:45 PM by NP Editor

Filed under: Kelly McParland,Full Comment Canadian politics

It must say something that, even in Canada's straitened circumstances, the best issue politicians in Ottawa can find to fight about is a proposal to spend more than $1 billion giving the unemployed a little more money for a little longer period of time. And only temporarily.

Not that opposition parties don't raise other issues. They might as well tape Question Period and replay it day after day, because the Liberals open every session with a variation on the same theme:

Mr. Michael Ignatieff (Leader of the Opposition, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the country is facing record unemployment, record bankruptcies, record hardship for small businesses, especially auto dealers, and still the stimulus is not flowing.
It is nearly June. Cities and municipalities are still waiting for the infrastructure funding that was promised in the budget. The government has already missed the June construction season.
Why has only six per cent of the stimulus gotten out of the door?

The problem is that Canadians know the Conservatives didn't cause the recession and are spending billions of deficit dollars fighting it, even though it offends their devotion to balanced budgets. They've only managed to spend 6% of the stimulus? Well, that puts them exactly even with Barack Obama, and Michael Ignatieff (along with most Liberals) adore Mr. Obama, so there's limited traction to be had from that.

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