Tie your hats with a spit, the Trudeau government’s pre-budget announcements are quietly but surely preparing us for an explosion in the budget deficit which will only be revealed to us on April 16.
Until then, billions of dollars have been announced to support new initiatives that go beyond federal jurisdiction: daycare, contraception, medications, dental care, housing, food aid for schoolchildren, etc. There is something for every taste!
Archive photo, AFP and QMI Agency
What skills?
The federal government therefore engages in costly expenditures that do not fall within its jurisdiction and disengages from those that are its responsibility.
It must be said that not a single cat votes for funding national defense, or because the federal government does not pay its fair share in financing health systems. Assume its responsibilities regarding border management? Not sexy. Ensure rapid processing of asylum seeker files to relieve the provinces? Too abstract. Deploy a concerted and effective strategy for international development? Too far. Support local businesses to develop new markets? Ugh.
The government prefers to spend borrowed money on programs for which it has neither the skill nor the expertise. He made these announcements without prior discussion with the provinces and without a request to this effect having been made to him.
- Listen to the political meeting with Yasmine Abdelfadel and Marc-André Leclerc via QUB :
Caught between the tree and the bark
At the same time, this puts the prime ministers in a politically difficult situation: how could François Legault rebel against the fact that vulnerable children are fed or that citizens can have free dental care? How could the government oppose the fact that women can have access to the contraceptive pill when Quebec does not offer it?
At the same time, the blatant encroachment on provincial jurisdiction sets a precedent that could be dangerous in the future and cannot be tolerated. Especially since the federal government tends not to meet its funding obligations over time, leaving the responsibility to the provinces.
But try explaining that to a taxpayer caught in the lurch, happy to finally have access to public services, regardless of whether it’s Ottawa or Quebec that finances them.