Leftwing Philosophy - Let's Give Prizes To Losers

Kelly McParland: One stimulus conspiracy too many

Posted: October 21, 2009, 1:45 PM by NP Editor

You have to be either naive or absurdly trusting to believe the federal Tories haven't been playing funny games with the stimulus money. Is there a government anywhere in the world that could hand out billions of dollars while resisting the urge to divert healthy portions to areas that will do it the most good? Maybe, but this isn't one of them.

Still, this Big Investigation into Tory stimulus spending is less than convincing. Its main conclusion is that stimulus cheques haven't been handed out in strict accordance to each party's exact proportion of seats in the House of Commons. For example, the Liberals have received only 10% of "big projects" in Quebec, even though they hold 19% of seats, and the Conservative share of million-dollar-plus projects is 23% higher than the party's share of House seats.

Gee that's ... totally underwhelming. Whoever said all 308 ridings had identical needs for sewage upgrades and construction projects? Were the Tories supposed to divvy up the cash and hand it out on an equal basis, so that every town got a nice new hockey rink, regardless of requirements? Besides, even a quick glance at the data the report provides suggests that if the Conservatives are using stimulus spending to buy votes for the next election, they're doing a pretty poor job of it.

Click here to read more...

• Riding snapshots: Breaking down the stimulus cash
• Methodology: Why the RInC?