Angry in the Great White North
Election time goodies and a separation of powers
Wednesday, November 23, 2005 at 07:55 AM

Read other posts by Steve Janke published by the National Post
Leader

martin.jpg Prime Minister Paul Martin

From the Ottawa Citizen:

Prime Minister Paul Martin's minority government introduced $86 million in new spending initiatives yesterday, with several billion dollars more still to come, in advance of what now appears to be the Liberals' certain defeat next week in the House of Commons.

One of the problems in our system is that the man who sets the budget is the man who sets policy is the man who leads the legislative agenda is the man who spends the money.

So as we Canadians are faced with the choice of who to elect to lead this country, to make decisions about Canada's role in international affairs, to set the tone of the administration, we are also faced with the dilemma that the same person is the one who is going to give out goodies.

For many Canadians, that makes it a tough choice (for me too -- diapers are expensive!).

Our prime minister can make financial promises because he controls the budget. In other systems, the head of state (in Canada, the PM is the de facto head of state) can't set budgets. That job lies with a separate, typically legislative, body. Because a legislature is made up of many people, the budget is a group effort, and no one involved has the power to promise much of anything.

An election without promises, at least without unseemly promises of cold hard cash, would be a welcome change.

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