I with you guys, let’s be as prudent as possible for the next 6 months until we know how this financial mess filters down to the small and medium sized business and the outcome with consumers. No government hiring would send a clear message.
Regards

To tighten their purse strings I think the federal government should quit spending money on official bilingualism, multi culteralism and human rights commissions.

Every Dept should be looking for expenditues that are unnecessary or not needed and eliminate them from the budget. Also, we all know that each Dept tries to spend their budgeted allotment by yearend so their budget will not be reduced next year -THIS HAS TO STOP!!! a CREDIBLE BUDGETTING PROCESS FOR THE NEXT YEAR HAS TO BE IMPLEMENTED AND JUDGED ON ITS MERITS OR PRIORITY.

Government is not a business with an endless supply of income - we have to reduce taxes. Let us begin to run Govt as a business and quit thinking that the Govt can create jobs. They are only there to create an atmosphere where business can prosper and create jobs. WE NEED CHANGE!!!!

I’ve always thoght a great way to cull program spending was to have a form at the end of our tax returns where we could allocate where say 25-30% of our taxes to programs we supported. My guess is that when taxpayers saw the 30 pages of programs, they would only support the really important ones and all the special interest ones would close due to lack of funding.
Of course, the bureaucrats would just redistribute the other 70% of our taxes to compensate….

A good start would be a review of the parliamentary reports that the Auditor General has published over the past 5-10 years and a concerted effort to rectify the findings of the Auditor General. A review of all department expenditures and programs should be carried out–not by parliamentarians (because they each have there own spending bias) and not by department mandarins (because they are biased by their need to keep their departments intact in order to justify their large salaries and bonuses) but by an expanded (temporarily) Auditor General Department with the mandate to provide the government and taxpayers with solid evidence of programs that don’t work and departments that are bloated with personnel. This way parliament would be energized to back the Conservatives in their efforts to make government departments leaner and meaner–taxpayers would have the knowledge to determine which party is fiscally responsible in their efforts to support downsizing, and hopefully punish those parties that do not do their part at the next election. Also implement sun-set legislation which would require parliamentary committees to review and report to parliament every 3 to 5 years on the effectiveness of programs with an objective to eliminate worthless programs. The actual liability of the government (including all three levels) is in the Trillion Dollar range due to a bloated beauocracy and pension liabilities. Future generations cannot afford to support this idiocy.
MP’s pensions must be rolled back as well.

A good start would be a serious, comprehensive program review and a dramatic reduction in the number of federal civil servants. Get rid of redundant and/or irrelevant programs and the redundant staff with it.

Barry Amies got it right! Whoever-other than Govt.-spends ALL their budgets, when not needed. I guess some Co-ops do the same thing- both these should be run like they ‘are spending their own $$$’! I think they must even teach that in some Univ. When my son was in U. he argued with me that I had to spend ALL my budget for it to work. Thankgoodness, he understood, when I explained that it took COMMON SENSE to make a budget work. This seems to be lacking in a lot of Govt. decissions these days. Maybe we could get some old farmer to teach a course on common sense in our Univ. Ron

As I reviewed some of the Pre-election spending or shall I say handouts from June to Sept, I was appalled at the amount of money handed out to Festivals, Artists, Museums, Cultural Activities, Francophone Organizations, Women’s schools, Pow-wows, etc. We won’t have anything to celebrate unless we get a handle on our spending.

I suggest we begin to reduce the size of government by eliminating the non-essential departments, handouts and wasteful spending. I recommend that every single department and every single expense be scrutinized. Anything that does not need replaced, use it for one more year. Just because the budget was a certain amount last year, doesn’t mean you get it this year. I have seen too many examples of government waste trying to make sure the money gets spent. The attitude pervading these folks is that if we don’t spend it, we won’t get it again next year. So, they continue spending money that doesn’t really need to be spent.

$116,000 for a Baseball Tournament in Edmonton?
$2,000 for a UFO Sighting Festival in Shag Harbour, NS?
$4,500 for a Pow-Wow in Burnt Church, NB
$32,919 for Supporting Cdn Book Publishing Industry in Regina, Sask
$81,000 for Supporting Cdn Book Publsihing Industry in Vancouver, BC
$80 Million to Ford Motor Co. for Fuel-efficient auto technologies
$6 Million for Supporting Entrepreneurship in Quebec? What
$2 Million to build a farmers market in Halifax

Now these are probably all very great projects. But, is this how we should be using government money in times of financial crisis? I don’t think so.

Now I do support rebuilding our infrastructure, investing in job training, and making this place a better place to live, but there are times when we need to give up something and make some sacrifices. Now is the time where everyone needs to pay down debt, have an emergency fund and set some spending limits that are within our income ranges. It’s the debt that is killing the world economy.

I would be for getting rid of the govt. employees unions for starters.
Govt. employees have too much security already and their wages,pentions
and all their other benifits are consuming all the wealth the county generates. They just keep asking for more pay for less work,
Their whole purpose in life is heap more and burden on the taxpayer.
They are paid by the tax payer so they should work for the good of the
paypayer instead of the opposite as now.
I would be for getting rid of 1/2 of them and all the unearned benifits
that they now feel entitled to.
They should not have as now all the benifits that we the taxpayer do
not even dream of.
I don’t know what the country would do with these people but I do know
we don’t need them ,they are like locusts and consume everything in fron
of them.

I think there should be an audit of the millions of dollars going to to the various native reserves

To Barrie Ames Comments, I would add the CBC to your eliminating list, particularly to its role in government affairs.

Now that we know that the Qubecois are happy to take money from the ROC but still insist on stabbing the rest of the country in the back, it would seem that a good place to start saving would be to chop the multiculturalism and bilingualism spending. This is no benefit to the ROC and the Belle Province doesn’t really care about the expansion of the French language elsewhere anyways.

Across the board 3-5% cut of all discretionary programs.
Immediate hiring freeze at all gov’t agencies.

There are probably thousands of ways that the government (at all levels) could cut costs. All of the previous suggestions are simply the tip of the iceberg. I will add a couple of others, that I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere else:

1) Why do we have so many MPs? In the old days, when it was difficult for a MP, or their constituents, to communicate, it was justifiable to have more MPs, to make that task easier. Today, that excuse doesn’t hold water any more. Everybody can contact their MP, with little effort. Our federal government could, easily, operate with less than half of the MPs that we have now, and doing that could have the added benefit, that they won’t be bored, and spend time dreaming up grandiose plans to spend our money. Of course, the Senate also needs to be cut back too. I would be happy to see 2 ELECTED members from each province, and territory (26 total).

2) Cutting the GST to 5% was a waste of time, and had no effect on cutting the cost of forcing people to comply. Always, the cost, to business, of compliance is never mentioned, and it is likely higher than most people would believe. Likewise, the cost for the government to collect, and police, the GST, is probably very close to the amount collected. This just doesn’t make sense. By scrapping the GST completely, and eliminating the bureaucracy that goes with it (not to mention buildings to house them, computers to help them do the job, staff to support them etc.), they not only cut the cost of government, they cut the costs to business, which encourages business to expand, and emply more people, in productive jobs.

Of course, none of that will be possible, with the current composition of the government, since none of them (including the civil servants), want to cut costs. They all want their own share of the pie, and the more they can get, the happier they are.

This is the time for federal spending to be restricted to those initiatives that are essential to the well being of Canadians and provide a return on investment to the majority. Reduction in the size of goverment would be a good start and to send the right message. This an essential time for members of all political stripes to drop thier own political agendas for the overall good of our country. This means cooperation by all.

Bob Sleeth
Peterborough. ON

All of the people who commented before me have very realistic, inteligent and valid comments and ideas, but none of their common sense ideas will every come true in our lifetimes without a revolutionof somekind.

There is such a huge beaurocracy in place that they, not the politicians, actually run the country, and “they” do things when they want, the way they want and the politicians are afraid to cross them or they won’t get their fat cheques and perks etc.

Harper could cut expenses by not getting involved in promising questionable gifts to third world countries for of all things fighting climate change.

I wonder what happened to the Harper of several years ago who publicly stated what many believe namely this entire global warming paranoia is simply a means of transferring wealth to poorer countries.

I guess he and Johnny Baird have had a sudden conversion and have bought into global warming hook line and sinker.

It is time we saw more publicity for the scientists that are arguing that global warming, caused by mankind producing carbon dioxide, is not supportable.

To see some of these check out www.friendsofscience.org

Cut Quebec off of the federal government public transfers plan.
Investigate Jean Charest the premiere of the province of Quebec and Gilles Duceppe Leader of the Bloc party for the indictable offences of sedition and seditious libel.
Prime Minister Harper should also likely be charged for sedition and seditious libel for calling Quebec a Nation and much more he has said at the recent Francophone summit and for allowing Quebec to overstep their provincial;l authority., including the vote to make “the Quebecois a nation”, which was illegal, see Canaada Criminal code, Sedition, Seditious libel.
The NCC should start a petition drive for they’re removal.

The three categories of expediture are defined by smarter peoples than me and they are worth paying attention to:
1. Essential expenditures
2. important, but not essential expenditures
3. Wish list; the “would be nice”, the expeditures that make people
happy, but does not fill their stomach, nor gives them phisical
security.
If this government can identify which ministries /departments belong to each category, and then prioratize their budegeting accordingly, then we can get through these times without much fiscal pain.
On the other hand, if category 3 is held as important as category 1, then we are in for a fool’s reward.

Hear, hear to all of the suggestions made above. Plus:

Cut CBC by $250 million
Reduce staffing by 6% which would take to last years level.
Cut staffing in Indian Affairs by 50%
Abolish the senate until we can decide on a new format…
Reduce the governor generals budget 25%
No more handouts to the big 3 auto makers.
Cut all handouts to bombarier…
And the list could go on…

To expand on the above: categories 2 and 3 would keep getting funded, but with reduced budgets reflecting the financial conditions we face. The actual amout of cuts ans also WHERE these cuts are made would have to be decided by people familiar with the details of the operations.

Abolish human rights commissions and therir kangaroo courts.
Abolish the CBC and sell its assets.
Abolish the CRTC and let competition clean the corrupt “Canadian Content” racket.
Keep cutting grants to welfare artists’ programs.

Unfortunately for some, their jobs have to go. Immediately stop the long gun registery. Do more industrial training of school children. To stop crime, decriminalize marijuana, then the police could spend more time on real crimes (ps, I don’t smoke anything or drink alcohal, to each his own) Stop spending on bilingualism (not withstanding). Cancel the “humane rights commision ” that is only hurting ordinary folks. What happened to ‘free speech’ Perhaps we should hold off on emigrates from countries that have radical opposing religious or politacal views,, or else immediately deport them. Our country is ours and they might be considered as traitors, leave or go to jail. Thanks

To Jim Henderson, if we are prepared to divide Canada geographically then many of us would insist that Stephen Harper and his Conservatives stop funding francophone economies. With the advent of Bill Gates the French have grown stronger in the world. They are pushing their language to be the first choice around the world. They are winning when our government hands over our taxes to French regimes.
In answer to the NCC question, I want Quebec to fund themselves. I am tired of Gilles Duceppe demanding more money be given to Quebec.

There are many good suggestions above, and I hope that Mr. Harper acts on some of them. Nowhere, however, do I see any suggestions to date on how to improve our ability to attract and regain some of the manufacturing jobs and industries that we lost over the past few years. Let’s face it, we are now competing with labour costs in China, India, and Mexico. I suggest that our government should now start this process by: (i) mandating a 10% reduction in civil service salaries and benefits; (ii) fully taxing all salary, bonuses, wages and benefits increases over the next three years; (iii) prohibiting stock options to employees and directors; (iv) forcing comparable reductions in union negotiated wages and benefits; and (v) investing advertising dollars over the next few years in the promotion of “buy Canadian” manufactured goods.

Just as you say –a hiring freeze. examine and cut expenditures, and cut taxes on individuals amd corporations!!!

To paraphrase Douglas McArthur: ” Old government programs never die. They don’t even fade away ” .

1-Have outside companies hired to evalute each dept. on their efficiency and ask them to be paid 33% in dollars, 33% in tax ctredits & 33% as a donation
2- Have retired senior citizens volunteer or part time pay work on special projects like Election Canada a way of keeping costs down instead of hiring full time emplouyd people and friends of Election Canada.
3-Have every politician who submits a program to prove how its going to benefit the country and dollar costs, before they are allowed to submit their proposal.
4- If any politician lies he should resign, we have seen too many politicians say one thing and do the oppositte, maybe more people may vote.

I agree with most of the comments just like to add cut the civil servant by 1/2 and make them work for a living like the rest of us there are lots of jobs in BC and Alberta.Get rid of the GST alltogether that would free up a bunch more people to fill some of those jobs.Quit wasting money on gun controll too it doesnt change anything. Lower income tax thats been proven to stimulate the economy.

1. Human rights commissions. (The Canadian Gestapo!)
2. CBC (Remind me of Herman Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda minister))
3. Official bilingualism.
4. Government paid for Multi culturalism

I hope Stephen Harper is reading the above blogs. My suggestion? Iwould do the following immediately:
1. Re the credit collapse, as little as possible. Remind the Canadian people that involving politicians as a solution is like throwing gasoline on a fire.
2. Freeze hiring and reduce the civil service by 20%. If corporations are forced to take extraordinary measures to shore up their bottom line, why shouldn’t the government be held to the same standard?
3. Dismantle the welfare state, pass the savings on to the taxpayers and dare the tax-and-spend opposition to vote no confidence. The Liberals are broke and in disarray. Kick them while they’re down. They deserve it.
4. Introduce legislation that would effectively throw the Bloc bums out of Ottawa. They are seditionists with no legal standing in federal politics. Tell them they can play with the big boys as soon as they have representation in all ten provinces. Until then, they’re just a regional protest movement, not a federal party. Besides, have you ever tasted poutine?
5. Tell Elizabeth May to stay home for the next leaders’ debate. She’s not qualified to run a kindergarten spelling bee. Besides, she proved herself to be nothing more than an obnoxious twit.

Definitely cut down on the number of bureaucrats in the health care system. The Long Gun registry should be disbanded. Canada Council on the Arts should also be disbanded.

Review all government departments to make them more efficient, clear out the many layers of amangement that seem to grow in every government department, but are unnecessary to the operation of the department.
Disband the HRC’s.

I agree with all of the above and unless we take a stand and do something about it we shall gradually go down hill.

Wow! Super racist comments. Is this really where I live?