The Newfoundland Levy

Me wrote:
   May 18, 2016 - 19:32

Even though I was visiting from Ontario, I decided to attend this vote. Looking at the Liberals' faces from the public gallery for this, I began to realize I was looking into the banal face of human evil. The austerity they are inflicting on your province will be measured in lives lost. The Liberal's message was incoherent nonsense: "We are listening to our constituents and they want us to make unpopular choices that we have to do because of the Tories....the children's credit card..democracy is about making unpopular choices we are kinda proud of...except for all the parts we'd would have liked to change....the children's credit card..."

It moved into black humour when the one rural Liberal starting quoting the University of Calgary economics department, seemingly unaware this was the the dark pit of market fundamentalism that spawned Harper. He also spoke of the BOM hopes for higher bond returns through crushing the people. At least he spoke the truth: this is a budget to please the banks by draining the lifeblood of the people. I was surprised that the word "banks" was never spoken in the debate. After all they are the mysterious entity that all the deficit is owed to.

Bravo to Lane for breaking ranks with the Liberal trash posing as politicians - the looks on some faces suggest that he was not the only member who wished they could represent their constituents not the banks.

Bravo also to the final impassioned speech by the NDP member. When she stopped reading her paper and spoke from heart it nearly brought tears to my eyes. Bravo to the elderly women who told the Liberals off and then escorted herself out of the gallery.

Dale Kirby squirmed when his shameful, duplicitous re-wording of the bill was blasted by both Cons and NDP -- and rightly so! There was also some Liberal guy with white hair who like the sound of his own voice as he happily mixed metaphors into a garbled wreck of a speech. Ball looked like a movie version of a villainous CEO.

My best to the people of Newfoundland as I leave tomorrow - I hope your turf the sorry collection of humans I saw sitting across as soon as you can. You deserve better. Now I head home to my own version of Liberal austerity back in Ontario.... We all deserve better.

http://www.thetelegram.com/News/Local/2016-05-18/article-4532924/Lane-votes-against-deficit-reduction-levy/

Telegram wrote:The provincial government owes Ottawa $266.7 million due to an interest-free loan given to the province in 2004-05, to offset dropping equalization payments.

The money was supposed to be repaid this year, to the tune of around $27 million per year, but Foote said given the province’s dire fiscal situation, Ottawa will delay repayment until 2022.

http://www.thetelegram.com/News/Local/2016-05-25/article-4539684/Premier-rejigs-the-levy%2C-thanks-to-help-from-Ottawa/1

From 1938 to 1974, the Bank of Canada provided near interest free loans to the Canadian government.

As a result of these loans, Canada had increasingly become prosperous and developed quite substantially, with the money created being used to build highways such as the McDonald-Cartier freeway, public transportation systems, subway lines, airports, the St. Lawrence Seaway, funding the universal healthcare system, and the Canadian Pension Plan.