Did you read that right? No economic stimulus package? Didn't this bill pass parliament last month on February 4th with much fanfare and Conservative / new Liberal buddy posturing?Well, yes - and NO!
The economic crisis deepens, Canada sinks further into recession. The country is bleeding hundreds of thousands of jobs - and yet our dysfunctional parliament can't get an economic stimulus bill passed. First it takes them a MONTH to get through to the third and final reading in parliament, so all can have their partisan moment in the media sun, now it has been sent to the Senate for "approval".
Just so you remember - that same Senate that is an un-elected body of political appointee hacks. Partisan appointments at that - every government in power tries to stack the deck by appointing their favorite backroom buddies. Cushy Senate committee seats next to the public trough with job guarantees to age seventy-five. That Senate. That worthless appendage of the Canadian parliamentary process.
Now the Senate is doing their best to boondoggle and filibuster and waste our time while Rome (our economy) burns around them. They want to send back the budget and economic stimulus package to Finance Minister Flaherty because it is contained in an omnibus package that includes other national business unrelated to the stimulus of the economy, as if they can't wrap their tired, old, shrunken, addled brains around more than one issue at the same time - like walking and chewing gum. Led by dire pronouncements from Senator Art Eggleton (formerly the mayor of Hogtown, who actually left the city in an economic mess) they want to block what our elected officials have already agreed to - IN the omnibus package - that has passed THREE readings of representative parliamentary process. What boogeyman do they think they will find under all the rocks already overturned?
This is ludicrous and dangerous! Our economy urgently needs measures to stimulate conditions to shorten the recession and create jobs for ordinary Canadians - who, unlike appointed senators, don't have job guarantees into next month, nevermind their sunset years. Email the senators and tell them this is unacceptable. (you can contact Eggleton at his link above - swamp him!). Find other senators at the Senate website here. Also contact your MP and urge them to support measures to make the Senate a useful, representative, elected body, or abolish it.
Pass the economic stimulus package now - stop playing politics with our livelihood.
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