Dr. No to rein in spending

J.P. SQUIRE with JOHN MOORHOUSE Friday, March 5, 2010 Penticton Herald:

Okanagan-Coquihalla MP and Treasury Board president Stockwell Day laughed when told his new nickname was Dr. No after the federal budget froze public sector spending. “I guess it could be worse. They could be calling me Darth Vader,” he said during a conference call with reporters Thursday. Asked whether that freeze will mean civil service layoffs, Day responded: “Each department is going to have to manage within the resources that they are given.” However, 13,000 people leave the federal public service every year, either through retirement or other reasons, he noted. “So there is lots of room there to allow for attrition if a department needs to do that. There‘s going to be a lot of flexibility, but the overall message is going to be clear: you‘re not going to get an increase in spending.”

He has already met with the heads of the 14 public sector unions. His message: “Look, folks, we‘ve got some challenges here. There‘s going to be a freeze on your operating budgets but, you know what, we want to be open to creative ideas. And I‘ve already got some good input. There will be times when we will be saying ’yes‘ to some creative ideas that can still deliver the level of service, but in an innovative way that doesn‘t require more dollars. “So it will be Dr. No when it comes to increases that don‘t line up with our fiscal plan and it will be Dr. Yes for the innovative approaches that I believe the public service has shown in the past and they will show in the future.”

The freeze covers $54 billion in expenditures: $28 billion in personnel and $26 billion in operations such as hospitality, travel, hosting and $9 billion in contracted-out services. Meanwhile, Alex Atamanenko, MP for B.C. Southern Interior, said the Harper government seems intent on shifting the tax burden from corporations to individuals. “People who are victims of this big recession haven‘t really benefited that much from this budget,” he said. The New Democrat MP noted even though banks‘ profits over the past year have doubled, the Conser-vatives continue to give the biggest tax breaks to the corporate sector. “There‘s no strings attached to the corporate tax cuts,” he said. “There‘s no guarantee that these corporations will have more research and development in Canada. There‘s no guarantee that they‘ll provide more jobs or that jobs stay in Canada.”

Atamanenko said while corporations will pay some $25 billion in taxes this year, individuals will be forced to pay about $117 billion. Employment Insurance premiums, although frozen this year, will rise in 2011. He wondered why Harper bothered to prorogue the last Parliament, when most of the budgetary measures contain little new initiatives. The NDP agriculture critic said the budget contains nothing for B.C. apple growers who have been hard-hit by low prices over the past two years, mainly due to the dumping of low prices from Washington state. “There‘s nothing in the budget that addresses that hardship,” he said. “All we‘re seeing basically in agriculture is some money to help slaughterhouses – and yet I‘m not even sure if that will trickle down to the cattle producer.”