TRUDEAU’S PRICEY MASTERCARD GIFT
MasterCard likes to use the word “priceless” in its advertising. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has managed to change that adjective by giving MasterCard a very “pricey” gift.
Trudeau, the all-time king of deficits, has given $50 million of our tax dollars to MasterCard, an organization that made $16 billion last year, just the latest in a string of what the late NDP leader David Lewis rightly nicknamed “corporate welfare.” Other recent examples of Trudeau’s wastefulness are: $12 million to Loblaws; $40 million to BlackBerry; and almost $3 million to Canadian Tire. These companies neither need nor deserve such handouts.
Trudeau’s explanation for his MasterCard largesse is that the organization was making a sizeable job-creating investment in Vancouver. Trudeau seems unable to distinguish between a reason and an excuse; MasterCard had already decided to make the investment before Trudeau stuck his beard in.
According to one source, the aforementioned $100 million would purchase about thirty MRI machines. And probably pay the salaries to operate them for a number of years.
Since taking office in 2015 Trudeau has increased the national debt by 5.6%, or $1,723 for every man, woman and child in the country. This is a staggering amount, especially since he’s doing it during good economic times. It’s scary to contemplate the damage he’ll do should the economy need to be stimulated.
And now he’s off on what amounts to an expensive and fruitless ego trip to Africa.
NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT
MP Mona Fortier has an interesting job. Shortly after his re-election last fall Trudeau created a mysterious new ministry, the inanely-named Ministry of Middle Class Prosperity, and appointed her its minister. The job pays $264,000 a year, not an unreasonable salary for a cabinet minister. The problem is that she has nothing to do.
Neither Fortier nor Trudeau, nor anyone else for that matter, has been able to define “middle class.” Fortier, in one interview I saw, suggested it was people who could afford to have their kids play hockey. Maybe that $264,000 salary is a bit high after all.
Other than Trudeau’s parrot-like talking point about his government working hard to help the middle class and helping others to join it, nothing seems to be happening. This is not surprising because the definition of middle class is a lot different in the Greater Toronto Area than it is in Morell, PEI.
Trudeau is not only the king of deficits, he’s also the king of cures for which there’s no known disease, which is what this charade is. It’s time to end it.
ASTOUNDING MINISTERIAL INCOMPETENCE
The two interviews that Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault had with CTV’s Evan Solomon, Question Period last Sunday and Power Play on Monday, were a perfect example of someone getting away to a bad start and then tapering off.
On Sunday, in a largely incoherent interview, Guibeault clearly indicated that the government was going to regulate news organizations and content. Then after the firestorm that his comments inevitably caused, he tried, as they say these days, to “walk back” his comments. Instead, in another largely incomprehensible interview on Monday, he made things worse.
This guy doesn’t have an inkling, and it takes seventeen inklings to make up a clue.
THE CONSERVATIVE LEADERSHIP RACE
Three questions for Peter MacKay:
1. Why, when throughout all your years in government, the best French instruction that other people’s money can buy was available to you, didn’t you take advantage of it?
2. If you can’t manage a Twitter account, why should anyone think you can run a country?
3 Did you really think that running away from a difficult press conference was a show of leadership?
And a plea to John Baird: Please enter the race.
KYLE DUBAS
I’ve never been a fan of Leaf GM Kyle Dubas. I think Brendan Shanahan made a mistake by not renewing Lou Lamoriello’s contract and giving the GM job to Dubas before he had earned the right to it. I don’t understand why Dubas let Curtis McElhinney, the best backup goalie in the league, be claimed on waivers, took so long to work up the nerve to fire Mike Babcock, and hasn’t adequately shored up the Leaf defence. Right now Lamoriello’s Islanders are in the playoffs and Dubas’ Leafs are not.