Tuesday, February 12, 2008

A proud moment in Canadian social justice: Flaherty's policy of jailing the homeless


Talk about a loose canon.

It's most instructive to parallel Flaherty’s policy thought process on “jailing the homeless” with his policy of “taxing income trusts”, as described in the two articles "below:

(1) Income-trust crackdown: The inside story
When the telephone rang, Flaherty knew he had to act [or was it panic?]
The Globe and Mail
November 2, 2006

“You have to either leave it alone or fix it,” Mr. Flaherty shrugged Wednesday. “We were going to see the two largest telecommunications companies in the country not pay corporate taxes. That's a clear and present danger to fairness in the Canadian tax system. I thought we had to act.”

[Heads we act, tails we don’t?]

(2) Scourge of the homeless
The Globe and Mail
February 16, 2002
EDITORIAL

"Ontario Finance Minister Jim Flaherty was looking for publicity, and he found it. When quizzed by reporters, he had no idea what his policy of dragging the homeless off somewhere, anywhere, would cost. He just wanted it done. He wanted to solve a complex social problem by sending out special police squads.”


Pretty much sums it up. Flaherty thinks he can solve complex multifaceted issues with draconian measures and blind decisiveness. That certainly makes a person fond for the prudent ways of one of Canada's best Finance Ministers.

And to think, they called him Mr. Dithers. Sheesh!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pretty soon, we will be seeing O'Flaherty in a reality based version of the movie "Trading Places."

Anonymous said...

Why this guy is still Finance Miniter is beyond me. He defines the term: Out of my depth.

I speculate that Harper the big picture strategist LOL is leaving Jim the dwarf in a position where he can do the most damage to Jim's future leadership aspirations.

One need only look at some of Jim's questionable past decisions to realize Jim must go and Harper must follow for inflicting an incompetent Finance Minister on Canada.

Anonymous said...

Oh Jimmy , Jimmy , wherefore art thou Jimmy.

Go ahead , toss those homeless in the can where they will no longer be a bother to anyone.

Go ahead , kick those greedy old fart trust investors in the ass--no one will notice or care if you take their hard- earned money & give it to the more deserving heads of Canada`s corporate elite.

To hell with the homeless--to hell with the old folks out there.

Jim says with glee "It`s not my Fault"--it must therefor be the fault of the homeless for being downtrodden as they are--it must likewise be the fault of the little guy investor for trusting in their gov`t to do the right thing.

If Jimmy keeps this up , the trust investors will be the new homeless & he can toss us all in the can together.

Thank you Jimmy for caring--we will not forget.

Mike.

Anonymous said...

We should expect more from a man whose forefathers were pirates?
Let's go out to the parking lot Jimmy? Is that an ambulance I hear? Can I borrow your police scanner? He screwed up in Ontario, now he is screwing up Canada, the IMF should be next for this loser.

Anonymous said...

I am not taking Flaherty's side, but don't you think he would not do anything, without being controlled by Harper. What a pair !

Anonymous said...

I am not taking Flaherty's side, but he would not do anything, without Harper's okay ? Quite a pair! Left a good deficit in Ontario with Harris.