Weak leadership, from both Conservative and Liberal leaders. We have the leaders we deserve… Where are the strong, star candidates? A strong leader will attract, and impose if need be, highly qualified candidates in ridings. Best example would be Marcel Massé who was parachuted by Chrétien as a candidate in Hull-Aylmer for the 1993 election and eventually acted as Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada, Minister responsible for Public Service Renewal, President of the Treasury Board and Minister responsible for Infrastructure. He presided over one of those exercises, the Program Review, which led to the only shrinking of government (1 of 6 government positions in the public service, or 50,000 jobs) in Canada's history.

Mr. Massé was a highly qualified and experienced manager of governments, provincial and federal, under different parties, and a former clerk of the privy council under Clark. Read his bio – http://clerk.gc.ca/eng/bio.asp?id=21

Our problem now is that neither Harper nor Ignatieff are bringing in people of that caliber. (Dion did) It's fine to say we'll do a strategic review, it's another to do it successfully. Chrétien, with Massé, did it. Those with a real, non-partisan interest in the matter should read the paper prepared by Jocelyne Bourgon, clerk of the privy council during the Chrétien years, which details how this was done.
http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/news/art…

A Majority government definitely has the ability to make the spending cuts required in the first 2 years of a 4 year mandate.

A minority or coalition is not able to cut spending.. Every minor cut (Kairos for example) becomes a battle ground.

Without looking too deep – Human Rights tribunals and CBC would have well over 1B in government funding.

I certainly could rather watch my hockey on TSN and take advantage of the TFSA. It is like Mr. Ignatieff says all about choices.

Mr. Wells here joins the "dissection" of Flaherty's numbers in his post above.

A magnifying glass to the right and a blind eye to the left.

It appears the media isn't even trying to hide their allegiances. Iggy rolls out a bunch of fantasy numbers and the media parrots the promises. No "dissection" there.

Iggy's goons rough up reporters and shove a pregnant womant at a rally and barely a whisper.

They unanimously proclaim he had a "good week" while he flanks on stage his candidate charged with a criminal offence (Rodrigues), supports a candidate who defends "the correct" form of rape, and has one who would be in his government as founder of a white supremist party. (Iggy denounces his past statements, but why no word on his being the founder…particularly since it was well known).

"And then the government fell, and now the departments can’t talk, and the Conservatives tell us they can find $11 billion in savings just like the couple of billion they just found."

They're lying about costs, revenue, spending and deficits. Straight up making things up. Those who could provide specifics are unaware of the cuts being claimed and cannot speak to the media during the campaign. On top of this, there's little in the recent CPC budget proposal that speaks to post-2014 healthcare, $140+ billion infrastructure deficit, $190+ billion needed to modernize the energy grid, etc.

Thank you for reporting on the current Government's financial fictions.

In my public sector experience, managing expenditure reductions through attrition is quite effective. Most civil servants who occupy junior positions and who are on the verge of retirement are usually the most useless. In the private sector their position would have been eliminated decades ago, but in the public sector the government waits until the person retires.

Odd the way Jim and his pal Stephen talk about a few billion here and toss a billion there. They never address the huge debt of 62% debt to GDP ratio. The CIA website shows the total Federal debt of $606 Billion dollars. ( factbook/geos/ca.html ) That adds up to a lot of interest being paid out to foreign countries every year.

I am not a fan of Paul Martin however he did state each year how much money we set aside to pay down the debt. Jim do you understand how an economy has a problem when facing such a massive debt?

Thanks for that interview. My lasting impression is about how hard the man works and how hard work it must be to have to do this governing stuff. Thanks again and I will indeed stop shaking my head soon.

Gosh imagine the journalist found it difficult to understand. Now there is a bunch of mathematical genius to be explaining budgets to the Canadian people. They find it difficult to write on anything without their personal bias showing on the left or right. Like the talking heads on TV if brilliance was a blessing that bunch is headed to hell.They always remind me of one who played a certain sport in high school,then when the games are on try and baffle you with their knowledge.