Comes right back to ‘Whose money are they spending’?? It would be a far diffrent story if the $$$ were coming out of their paychecks. Even if they were ‘accountable’ –litterly– for the $$$$ they are spending- Always ’someone’ else to blame–Ron

Is there not some sense that reducing spending is part of the problem. It seems you are advocating people ought not to spend but rather join those who exhibit lack of consumer confidence. Is that not just giving in to the Chicken Littles of the medie an finacnce worlds are recommending. Personally, I’m buying.

Ontario’s McGuinty is likely wringing his hands with glee at the thought of finally having a “legitimate” excuse to run a deficit. Just think of the unlimited spending he can do. These are good times for a “Tax and Spend” Liberal majority.

This is where our political system fails. Just like PM Harper cut funding to some ‘inefficient arts programs’ and took the ‘voters hit, the premiers also, due to ‘votes’ will not make any kind of mood to tick of unions etc. Cut government jobs? Want to see a screeching hault to all government departments and labour union leaders whipping up a frenzy in the public? This is a two edge sword - do the right thing, save tax payers money and have massive stikes or do the wrong thing, go in debt and keep the union peace. What would you do, NCC?

The right things for all governments (federal, provincial and municipal) to do to avoid deficits would be to undertake the following measures: (i) scrap ineffective spending programs; (ii) put a freeze on new hiring; (iii) reduce the size of the bureaucratic machinery; (iv) legislate immediate reductions in the pay and wages and benefits of all civil servants and elected members; (v) sell under-performing crown corporations and vacant or under-utilized properties; (vi) outsource repetitive activities to the private sector; and (vii) scrap the official bilingualism and biculturalism policies and practices across the country. The above would go a long way in helping to realize the goals and principles advocated by the NCC and its late Founder. Let’s hope that governments are listening.

I think we are seeing the results of what has been taught in our schools for the past several decades, and that is that you cannot succeed financially in life unless you first borrow from the banks. Young people today are not happy until they have everything that it took us older ones years to accumulate because we only bought what we could afford.
Now those same younger people are running the governments and guess what? They firmly believe that provinces and countries can only survive on deficit spending. Perhaps a recession is just what we need to teach us that we can live on a lot less and live quite well. Spend only what we need to UNTIL SUCH TIME as there is MORE TO SPEND!

The only real employment growth YOY was within the public sector.No doubt the federal and provincial bureacracy needs to be cut deeply. But don’t hold your breath, this is Canada and we really don’t have any conservative governments willing to take the tough medicine…

The civil service unions are deeply entrenched, well organized, have plenty of cash to spend and know full well that politicians at all levels will not risk confrontation with them because the unions represent large voting blocs. Also, the left-leaning activist courts have always sided with the union bosses, e.g., forced dues, anti-scab laws, etc. The right thing to do would be to make sweeping cuts and face the wrath of the unions. Of course, when have politicians ever done the right thing?

When Bob Rae was Premier, he completed forced Unionism in the Ontario Civil Service by creating AMAPCEO for more senior & professional civil servants (OPSEU already owned the more junior positions). Since then, salary ranges have shot up significantly - in many cases well above the private sector & its expansion under the Liberals has been rampant. Allowing unions into a government setting is a recipe for extreme expenditure & taxpayer abuse. Governments have no stomach for standing up to excessive union demands - and the problem compounds over time. Meanwhile, everwhere else, unions are in decline. When & how will this cancerous problem be confronted?

I read that here in BC, our Provincial Government is paying $6 Million per day in interest on our Provincial debt. That is just the interest. Blows the mind how so called responsible, educated people can continue this behavior and even suggest that they may have to go further into debt. They should all be canned if they cannot figure out what they need to do.

Instead of paying down our debt when things were going relatively good, our responsible leaders found ways to increase capital spending at about the same pace as the economy was growing. Just because they have not incurred a deficit, doesn’t mean they have done anything about the debt. And it appears that the only thing they have done is increase it. Stupidos.

As if it makes more sense to try to pay down debt when the economy is in the dumps. Cut, downsize, reduce, eliminate. They just don’t get it.

Politicians have little input into the size of the civil service, other than to make token efforts to reduce its size from time to time. The real driver for civil service expansion comes from the senior managers within the service, because it is always in their interest to have more warm bodies reporting to them. A competent bureaucrat can always make a case for more staff. If no extra duties were added to the civil service, its size would increase regardless.

The problem with increasing the size of the public sector is that the public sector, by and large, does not create wealth. Only the private sector can do this. As the public sector expands, so more stress is placed on the private sector to support it. Ultimately the whole edifice comes crashing down. If you want some real-life examples, take a look at most South American countries and their perennial financial problems. Without exception, they all have enormously bloated public sectors and relatively anaemic private sectors. Canada is heading that way.

This is just such a sad situation…we stand at a crossroad, where we either choose to stand up the bully of bloating, ineffective and overpriced civil service or be doomed to become a caricature of a country overtaken by the very government set up to serve it. I am reminded of the bittersweetly funny Bob Newhart routine called “the last taxpayer”.

But, on a more positive note, it would seem to me that the tide has already turned somewhat …we already have seen public backlash against CUPE, OPSEO, the CAW and ETFO here in Ontario by the public over recent strikes and issues. I think that if government can muster the courage to make the cutbacks in the public sector that need to happen, that the unions who cry foul will find themselves very much on the wrong side of public opinion. Canadians who are NOT unionized in the civil service or large corporations, and who have had to make the tough decisions time and time again to save their own businesses will have very little patience or sympathy for the unrealistic expectations that public sector unions have persisted in demanding, regardless of the economic realities of today. So if governments want to get re-elected by tailoring their economic policies to appease voters, they might be better served to actually do the right thing for a change and cut back their own beast, And let the unions scream. Before the majority of Canadians who have to do things “in the real world” oust them for the poor governace they show when they succumb to the unrealistic demands of the civil service. Of course, that might require a few more of us to show up on election day and vote. Sigh.

Well said!

Although I assume you meant of “all stripes”

Is it permissable to forward this to our local newspapers?

The old saying “spend yourself out of debt” ultimately in the end does not work unless everything works perfectly and all involved contribute to the cause, plus a few miracles which God isn’t in the habit of doing for those of greed interest. Far more practical it is for one who is in great debt, as many of us our, is to “bite the proverbial bullet” and stop spending. I think of 29% charges is nuts as some companies charge. Governments need to quit putting the debt on our children and grandchildren. Yes, we can and need to realize that we can wait for many things until we can afford. Cut and wait. Patience is a virtue. And by the way, how can we help the government? JF Kennedy a not so favourite US president once said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

All the government has to do is look at what happened in New Zealand, a few years back, and how they solved it. We are in worse shape financially - in regard to portion spent of GDP, in relation to the CUPE expenditures - than they were, but we fail to recognize that factor. For instance they had a train service replete with 18,000 employees, which never ran on schedule, lost money every year, and the service was abominable. We were there a few years later when they had reduced the work force from 18,000 to 5,500, which resulted in the trains starting to run on time, it started to make a good profit, and the service was impeccable. Go figger

We have more than 8 times as many government employees per capita, as Japan, who openly admit their government work force is too massive.
16% of Canadian workers are public service employees, with massive perks, superannuation and great medical plans.

Cut back on the 1969 Official Bilingualism, currently running, by my estimate, at $19,000,000,000 (that’s billions) for the one year ended March 31, 2008; and $1,150,000,000,000 (that’s trillions) for the 40 years since 1969. That’s each for total costs - federal, plus provincial, plus private sector!

This huge cost, at roughly over 2 X our national debt of about $500,000,000,000 (that billlions), is a scandal and a national disgrace!

The requirements could be satisfied by using translators, where necessory, as was done before 1969.

We Need to expose these type of Government s and politicians that its not their money to abuse. Its time we start to make them accountable.
NCC should work with all medias and print these problems for all taxpayers to see and have a reply data bank so that all can respond.
Three strikes and you are fired

Well said and a very logical procedure for most managers in business.You could run a deficit and drive the operation out of business and hence no jobs for anyone!!!Many politicians only understand tax and spend!

Deficit financing is just plain wrong. Out leaders should be prevented by law from such practice. Surely we should have learned by now that we must live within our means, even if thos means cutting or temporarily suspending some of the services that gevernments have gecome accustomed to handing out. Cut the size of the civil service, and some of their perks.

So, the civil service may strike? Would we even notice?
The level of incompetence in the provincial and federal civil services is incredible. It is like government jobs is a filter through which useless people can avoid being flushed. Governments should definitely respond like industry and cut costs. We already have too many civil servants, in a recession it is downright rude to think government jobs are sacrosant.

The unionization of the Civil Service is even more insidious than many people realize. All civil servants are forced to pay obscenely high levels of annual union dues whether they choose to belong or not but have been denied the normal worker rights of being able to petition to have their unions decertified. This is because unlike other unions, the rights and operation of government unions are enshrined in legislation.

In effect, Unions are sucking out huge amounts of revenues from the civil service and using that funding to promote their socialist viewpoints & attempt to salvage fading unionism in the private sector. At this time of serious government financial strain, THIS WOULD BE AN IDEAL COMPAIGN FOR THE NCC TO EXPOSE THE COSTLY TYRANNY FOR TAXPAYERS OF GOVERNMENT UNIONS.

Isn’t it amazing that many bloggers demand cutting civil servants from our bureaucracy but none actually is willing to get up off their lazy butts and vote for politicians that advocate actually doing that. Political leaders who want to reduce size of government are shunned because if those leaders did carry out a bureaucratic downsizing it would mean family members or friends and their family members would suffer being unemployed. In other words the huge bureaucracy is too far reaching. It all comes back to the greedy ‘me’ society. Never to what is right

To Gordon - your comments don’t make much sense.
1) There are no major Parties (including the Conservatives) that are advocating cutting civil servants - consequently, the solution is not to get off one’s butt and vote.
2) The real problems are the enormous & excessive costs/ inflexibilities brought about by forced unionism in Government.
3) The solution is to put an end to the tyrannies of forced unionism in government. That can only begin with an awareness campaign that if effective, will eventually spill over into political action.