As an interested observer of federal politics, I believe it essential that Kootenay Columbia MP Jim Abbott‚s recent Riding-wide editorial not go unchallenged.

Mr. Abbott’s assertion that Stephen Harper’s Conservative government actually has an “agenda” to deal with the consequences of the current economic crisis, implying some degree of foresight and pre-planning, is misleading.

Much like a boxer forced back on his heels by a series of strong, well placed blows, Stephen Harper’s Conservative government finds itself reacting defensively to the world economic crisis. Instead of anticipating events and either strengthening existing government programs like Employment Insurance or developing properly financed new ones designed to help Canadians weather the storm, the Conservative government has been caught completely off guard.

A case in point is the Conservative government‚s November 27th, 2008 fiscal update. At a time when financial markets around the world were collapsing and the economies of the United States, Japan and Britain were entering recession, the Conservative government actually told us that Canada was somehow different and that we would avoid recession. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty even predicted several years of balanced budgets and a small fiscal surplus.

Yet as an indication of just how badly the Conservative government miscalculated the impact the global economic crisis would have on Canada‚s finances, in the space of 2 short months the January 27th 2009 federal budget then predicted a $34 billion deficit. This is a stunning reversal by any standard.

Unfortunately for Canadians, it gets worse. On May 26th, 2009 Finance Minister Flaherty gave us another fiscal update, this time revising his deficit projection upward to $50 billion. This represents an almost 50% increase in Mr. Abbott‚s Conservative government‚s deficit projection - another considerable miscalculation.

If you include the $200 billion the Conservative government has spent to help improve Canadian credit markets (including buying $125 billion of mortgage backed securities from the chartered banks), a $10 billion bailout for the Auto industry, another $1 billion for forestry and billions of promised new money for “shovel ready” municipal infrastructure projects (in addition to federal gas tax monies), what appears to be an “ambitious governing agenda” is really an orgy of government spending with tax payer dollars. Tax cuts for all? Guess who pays.

With budget deficits now being predicted well into the future, I‚m not sure how much more Conservative “governing agenda” Canadians can take. We are once again awash in a sea of red ink.

Finally, with all the recent tax payer funded ads promoting the (Conservative) Federal Government’s Economic Action Plan and MP Abbott’s shamefully biased Communication pamphlet reaching every voter (I mean constituent) in the Riding, it’s not hard to believe that another federal election will soon be upon us.

But not until MP Jim Abbott once again tells us that opposition to the national long gun registry is the most important issue facing the country will I believe an election is close at hand.

Brent Bush

Kimberley