We've Been Stimulated

Ah, the budget, there it is in all its spendthrift glory. No complaints, not really. Who could logically criticize funding vitally important items that this country requires to ensure it remains of sound mind and stout body? A hearty sum of $7-billion allocated for our crumbling bridges, potholed highways, worn out public buildings. Good, very good.

Another $2-billion for low-income housing. The better to resurrect our honour and our pride as a country that provides for all its citizens. Job re-training has taken another $1.5-billion of the nation's treasury and it's a necessary down payment on the future of our workers, our productivity, our gross national product, our ability to fend for ourselves.

Communities within this great country so adversely affected by the downturn in fortunes of our natural resources in forestry and mining, along with our agricultural sectors - feeding this great hungry nation, providing staples to be shipped abroad to feed the world's hungry - another $1-billion. Doesn't seem all that much for such a broad and vital purpose.

Guess the finance minister thought so too, because in his great wisdom he allocated another $550 for agriculture, and hurray for him and for us, as well. Canada's farmers and agricultural conglomerates get down to basics. What does it avail a country if it cannot provide the gustatory wherewithal through which its people can thrive?

Tourism, let us not forget tourism, enticing the world to witness first hand the geographic spread and depth of this great country, second in size world-wide to none but one. From our tidal basins, to our ocean seascapes, our great tracts of undisturbed forest to our frozen North, our endless Prairies and Rocky Mountain heights; come and visit - $300-million for tourism projects.

Poor old Ontario - so long the engine of prosperity for the country, and still in its enfeebled state due to manufacturing closures, responsible for 40% of this country's wealth - it too gets a nod. From pride in place to penance of penury. The federal government, in its budget, recognizes the province's bitter travails, and gives it $250-million for regional economic development.

A nod at that old adage that man does not live by bread alone. We require sensory and aesthetic stimulation, to remind us of who and what we are as a people. Our culture, our artistic endeavours in the literary, music and plastic arts require constant nourishing lest they shrivel and vanish through the misery of neglect; to the cultural sector, $160-million!

And more, oh so much more, no need ignored, no sector passed by. A lot of sweet, a little bit of sour; municipalities and provincial governments will be enticed, nay, expected, to pony up their share. So the taxpaying middle class who will see some relief in the federal budget will on the other hand see that relief absorbed by higher municipal taxes; easy come, easy go.

The NDP and the Bloc foam and fulminate, agitating for projects left behind, but then nothing would quite satiate their need to tax and spend, and their support is at best minimal, overall. Fully 57% of Canadians applaud this budget. Michael Ignatieff, take heed.