Blame Ontario! It seems that everything's gone wrong, since Dalton came along!

If there was any doubt about Harper's motives in this spat with Ontario, they've certainly been answered over the last two days. There's nothing wrong with the federal Finance Minister giving advice to his provincial counterparts since you can't deny the Ontario and Canadian economies are interconnected. There's probably even a time and place for making this advice public.

But the day before the budget is released is not the time to do it. And this childish stunt on the Conservative website further shows that this is nothing more than Stephen Harper picking yet another fight.

As for the validity of Flaherty's argument?

But on Monday, Flaherty dismissed suggestions the province could not afford to cut spending arguing since he was finance minister of Ontario in a previous Conservative government, spending has increased 50 per cent.

"When the premier says he can't control spending, or he can't reduce spending I have a little trouble with that quite frankly given the skyrocketing spending over the past six years," Flaherty said.

Well, Paul Wells does a pretty good job breaking it down and showing that things have gotten a lot better in Ontario since Flaherty stopped making the decisions there. I'd also wager that there isn't a lot of nostalgia in Ontario for the good old Harris-Flaherty days, despite Jim's belief that there will be protests in the street in support of corporate tax cuts.

It's also somewhat baffling to me that the biggest spending finance minister in the history of Canada is the one urging Dwight Duncan to cut spending in favour of tax cuts.

In fairness, Flaherty may have a point that it's important to call out a finance minister who was irresponsible enough to let spending increase by 12% over two years and has budgeted for it to keep rising despite an impending economic slowdown. But, as the numbers show, Flaherty won't need to go very far to call that finance minister out. Here are the provincial and federal spending numbers (in Billions), using the last year before Flaherty came to Ottawa as the baseline:

.................ONT/CAN

2005-06: 85.3 / 209.0

2006-07: 88.8 / 222.2

2007-08: 96.0 / 234.3

2008-09: 96.2 / 239.6

2009-10: 99.6 / 250.7

So, two years into the Flaherty era, federal spending has increased by 12.1%, a far cry from the "skyrocketing" 12.5% spending increase in Ontario over that time. Adding this year's budget numbers gives Ontario a 12.8% increase compared to a frugal 14.6% increase in Ottawa. Projecting ahead to '09/'10 and Ontario's budget will have grown by 16.8% over the last four years, compared to 20.0% federally.

And, of course, we're taking Flaherty's numbers at face value which, given the creative accounting that went on during the Harris-Eaves years, may be a risky assumption.

Somebody misses his old job

Poilevre gets read to slam McGuinty tomorrow.

Flaherty continues his assault today:

TORONTO — Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty took the extraordinary step yesterday of denouncing Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty's management of the economy just hours before the unveiling of the provincial budget.

Mr. Flaherty did not say anything he hasn't already said in recent weeks about the need for the province to heed his calls to reduce business taxes. But the timing of his latest attack, on the eve of today's budget, raised eyebrows around the provincial legislature. A government source called it unprecedented.

The Finance Minister made a special trip to Toronto, where he made a dire prediction about the prospects for Canada's largest economy under the McGuinty government. Without tax cuts, he warned, Ontario is in jeopardy of becoming a “have-not” province for the first time in history.

Even if you want to give Flaherty the benefit of the doubt and assume he's genuinely concerned about the state of the economy, that doesn't explain him making these demands on Budget Day Eve, when the time for changes has long since passed. There is no way to interpret this as anything but political posturing.

Given that, one would assume there's some sort of master plan behind all of this because...well...people always assume there's a master plan behind everything Stephen Harper does. The only game plan I can see is that Harper thinks the economy is ready to tank and plans to scape-goat McGuinty. But even that doesn't fully explain the intensity of the fight Harperty has picked with Queen's Park.

In The News

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? And, boy, are they pissed. And 45 minutes late.

Schreiber & Mulroney Inquiry Called: A Game of 17 Questions.


I don't feel like giving a detailed, or even half-assed, analysis now. Luckily, Kady O'Malley has a run down of both events.

Feel free to debate away in the comments section.

Signs your boss has more faith in Gordon O'Connor than in you

Does anyone else find it odd that Canada's Minister of intergovernmental affairs hasn't said a single word about the all out war being waged between three Premiers and the federal government? Especially when one is considering suing her government?

Peace in our Time - Day 93

Have-no provinces only want their fair share: MacDonald

Federal minister tears strip off Newfoundland Premier

Calvert not backing down from lawsuit against feds


I know it's petty to say I told you so. But when it's Jim Flaherty on the other end, I don't really feel that bad about it.

So Jim. I told you so.