Evidence of a 'Hidden Agenda'... er, well... not really what we hoped for....

Here is the link for the full article from ctv.ca.

Turns out the Tories did not include (hid) some of their platform (also called their agenda) from the Conference Board economist they hired to 'audit' their costing analysis.

Seems like the left out a few of their big-ticket items, namely:

-"Redressing the fiscal imbalance" between the provinces and Ottawa.

-Their healthcare guarantee.

Now, I don't know about you, but those seem like pretty big, expensive things to leave out of the platform you send on to be 'audited' by an independent economist.

Heck, the GST alone on those items is probably a million or so dollars! "But wait!" Says Tory finance critic and rumoured Finance Minister in waiting Monte Solberg, "We have already stated that we will be cutting the GST by 1% as soon as we take office. So, the savings in the GST on those big-ticket items alone will pay for the re-decoration and update of 24 Sussex. So, in fact, we will be saving Canadians money! Yeah that's it!"

What you missed in Mr. Solberg's comments (exclusive to lastcanadianexit.blogspot.com by the way) was his waving of his voodoo economics chakra sitck (a webcam would have been handy just now).

Back to reality here.

This is really an issue. Without a full disclosure of their platform promises and the associated price-tags, it is clear that the Harper team has not been truly forthcoming.

Why would they do such a thing? What could they gain by not including these numbers in their 'audited' platform?

Simple.

They wish to put their best, balanced-budget foot forward when campaigning, and think that a campaign platform that shows deficit spending would be an achilles heel.

And, they saw Ernie Eves do it in Ontario. People bought those numbers (not enough to win the election), that is at least until McGuinty's crew got in and discovered the Torys' massive fudgit-budget.

It is the same smoke and mirrors, voodoo economics BS us liberals and Canadians by and large grew tired of long ago.

The best lines of the article are these:

The Conservative party promoted that conclusion last week as evidence its election platform had been "independently verified" by the Conference Board, an Ottawa-based think-tank.

But Darby says the version of the platform he was given to vet didn't include a Conservative party health-care guarantee which states patients will be transported to another jurisdiction if they can't get timely care at home.

It also omitted a Tory platform promise to redress the so-called "fiscal imbalance" between Ottawa and the provinces.

Darby wouldn't comment on whether the timely health-care guarantee would bear a significant cost.

"Talk to Harper," he said. "It is not in the platform I received from them."

And this...

Darby said he does not believe that either the health-care guarantee or the promise of fiscal rebalancing were serious commitments from the Conservatives.

"Those are two items that are not in what I was presented to analyze," he said. "I don't think, frankly, that those are in the platform, they're just under discussion.

"Those items were not costed, which leads me to believe that they're something that they're having under consideration that they're not committed to."

But Conservative finance critic Monte Solberg said both items are serious commitments.

When reached for comment, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper, maintained there is no hidden agenda, "There is no hidden agenda here, we've been very forthright. We have costed every promise, and it has been independently audited. Oh, and God Bless America, er... I mean Canada."

** All MP's quoted in blog (other than in the CTV.ca article) have been impersonated... poorly. **

A. L.