Promises have been broken

The Liberals tabled their latest budget with 13 highlights that in my mind are simply promises that are proven far too easily broken.

They are designed to buy our votes. Their reckless respect for our country’s debt will be paid for by future generations. This is in complete disregard for the broken promises that we fell for in the last election.

Trudeau has failed when he promised us three main incentives to vote Liberal:

• A balanced cabinet with an open and honest way of governing. This promise was broken by his handling of the SNC-Lavalin affair.
• Sensible and responsible debate regarding major government spending. That was avoided in the $4.5 billion purchase of the incomplete and idle Kinder Morgan pipeline.
• A promise to deliver a balanced budget by 2019 while adding no more than $20 billion to our national debt. That promise has been blown away and confirmed in this new budget. 

When voters get their next chance to pass their verdict on the Liberals’ fiscal stewardship, the Trudeau government will have added roughly $75 billion to the national debt compared to their campaign promise to us in the last election.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau confirmed what everyone knew all along. There will be no balanced budget by October 2019, and not only that, it’s deficits for as far as the eye can see if the Liberals stay in government.

Morneau argues that deficits and debt are not what is important, it is the size of that debt relative to the national economy. It’s true, the debt-to-GDP ratio continues to decline and will be at 30.5 per cent at the next election. In 2015, Trudeau promised it would be 27 per cent, another broken promise.

The Liberals promised they’d balance the budget by 2019 to $19.1 billion, but have instead added an additional $66 billion in debt on our backs.

Morneau trotted out a theme you will almost certainly will hear over and over again as we get closer to Election Day this fall.

“When the (Conservatives) push for an aggressive elimination of the deficit, what they really mean are aggressive cuts in services, cuts that will make life harder for people and their families,” he said.

For Liberals, they’ll be hewing hard to the old saw, “Tory times are tough times.”

The Conservatives will be pushing back, making the case that you ought to save when times are good so you have some reserves for the bad times. Indeed, Leader Andrew Scheer has already promised such a plank in his platform.

Think of the dire future the Liberals are downloading on our kids when we go to vote in six months.

John Snelgrove, Peachland