I support scrapping the 10 percenters. However, as Conservatives, they do have a problem getting their message out so I understand why they want to use them. It helps identify support for their database.

But still I’m all for any Government eliminating waste and so far, we dont see much of that from the PMO. Its too bad. They really should push their core values a bit more.

One suggestion is to base department bonuses on the amount the department is able to reduce its budget from the previous year, adjusted based on inflation and the number of citizens actually serviced.
Zero based budgeting should be instituted so that each year each department has to justify their budget. Another useful excercize would be to look to see where there is overlap between departments, and the implications of eliminating departments completely.
We simply cannot allow debt servicing to continue to take more and more of our budget. We have to get the deficit tamed and get back onto eliminating the debt.

It is a problem for the Government to keep it’s policies before the voters with the four opposition parties constantly on the attack and throwing mud. However we know that over all the Government is doing a great job of getting us successfully through the economic down turn. I for one support the Harper government for what it has done and continues to do.

I’m at odds to understand why the Conservatives voted against the 10 percent mailings. I wonder how many Conservatives there were who voted nay because to vote otherwise would probably have meant their expulsion from the Conservative party?

I have for a long time felt that there is something wrong with our Parliamentary system which is supposed to be based upon a democratic elected representative body which truthfully is not a democratic representative government but a form of dictatorship where the Prime Minister and to some extent his cabinet call the shots and all the other MPs follow and if they don’t they either resign or are removed from the party. This undemocratc system does not allow for MPs and MPPs to represent their constituents. At times over the years I have read of retiring politicians making the statement that it was a pleasure representing his or her constituents and my thought has always been, “how did you represent your constituents when you had to follow party lines.” “When did you ask your constituents for their opinion?”

I for one am not a fan of Harper, Ignatief, and Layton, the three major leaders. I will vote in the next election but not for any party, I am going to print at the bottom of my ballot. “None of the Above.” I believe that all three leaders have demonstrated that they and their party are not worthy to receive a vote.

1. Eliminate big bonuses

2. Eliminate large severance pay

3. Defund abortion

4. Reduce entertainment expenses; eliminate alcohol expenses

5, Reduce travel costs

6. Add some import duties, ban imports if some have been dangerous, eg drywall, toys, baby formula, . . .

7. Reduce support for immigrants

8. Reduce or eliminate grants to special interest groups

9. require better accountability on loans

10. Establish fixed election times

I don’t mind the 10% system. It is used for marketing the party, and that is fine with me. The Conservatives do not spend enough time or effort pushing their messages. A third-rate poet on CBC this morning - he did his embarrassing thing at the Olympic opening last month - was complaining that the government had made drastic cuts to the Arts. This is nonsense. They just didn’t increase funding. Naturally the CBC did not contradict him - surprise, surprise! There are lots of similar rumours going round which are rubbish. If the Conservatives were ahead of the game, they would have a succinct series of messages out there that not even the CBC would dare to dispute. All educated voters should have realized that the ridiculous cretinites prorogued parliament several times. The ghastly Rae, who spends hours whining about it, did it six times. The Conservatives allowed this prorogue stuff to go unchallenged, and amazingly suffered from it. Thanks to the Liberals’ successful efforts to promote lousy education and strong teacher unions, the voters, uneducated and stupid as most of them are, believe this mis-information. Words of one syllable from the Conservatives on a very regular basis would change the picture in short order.

I say let’s keep the 10%.

Can we start a sensible cut in costs by insisting that all Members of Parliament take an immediate 25% pay cut? All cost is labour and this is where to begin. Let’s spend a bit of money on unbiased lawyers to unwind some of their pension “entitlements”.

Chipping away at the edges saves nothing. A hatchet to pay is the only way to cut chunks of cost. Then we can get after the feather-bedded unions.

That is exactly right John. It’s not rocket science and it’s not special knowledge. Conservatives should know that better than anyone. But for some reason what is supposed to be a conservative party shows little sign of it time after time. The MSM has intimidated the CPC into proving how liberal they are and scared the CPC away from conservative values both fiscal and social. And as we all see it has worked perfectly. There is no scarey agenda. We need not fear a conservative agenda from the CPC because they don’t have one. The CPC are just keeping the seats warm for the LPC once they find their next leader. We won’t see any big change if the government changes. A bit more spending but much of the same old same old. My MP sends his literature proudly proclaiming the money being spent in our riding. To me that’s not conservative. It’s tax payer money buying favour with the voters. I guess we’ve learned to keep low expectations and we won’t be let down. We don’t have much to choose from here. Liberalism has certainly not been pushed back to any degree that will ever make a difference. There are glimmers of hope from time to time but not much. Cuts need to be made. If not flyers then start cutting the size of government. That’s where the serious money is.

Do we really need all those palatial embassies and consulates in foreign countries? Couldn’t one embassy, for example (located in Brussels), be enough to serve all of the EU?
The foreign services bill must be horrendous.

Please tell Harper, shill, to stop serving Rothschild and start serving the Canadian people who supposedly hired him. We know all about the AGENDA now. The great people of Canada have awakened. The global agenda does not serve Canada. The IMF, UN, WHO are all owned by the Rothschilds. They are the global masters. The buck stops here Stephen. What’s it going to be? You are Prime Minister of Canada or a global conspiracy shill. Which is it Stephen? We want to Know. Sincerely Mark.

Get rid of the CHRC (kangaroo courts) and leave those problems for the regular courts. At least in a regular court a person can get a fair hearing.

shut down free parlimentary cafeteria
Stop haircuts
cut out all fist class flights
publish all members expense on the net monthly
cut 20000 government jobs
cut ALL benifits and handouts to ALL business and ngo’s
reduce budget to rcmp
reduce grants and handouts to other countries

I agree with all the suggestions made by the previous commenters to reduce wasted taxpayers money. I am now in the process of preparing my 2009 Income Tax return and when I think of all the frivolous spending, I literally get sick to the stomache.

Peter C
The next thing is the addition of 35 more MP to the House of Commons. I agree Alberta,Ont.and BC have less MPs than they should have, if we
are going to have the 305 we have now and do not need.
The constitution was draw up a long while ago and should be changed. Provinces like NS, PEI, Quebec, NB, NFLD should lose seats in line with there declining population to provinces gaining population.
NCC preach for less government and then do not oppose this and I cannot see why. I am not going to vote or donate to the PC party if they bring a bill forward or donate to NCC if they do not oppose this now.
It is quiely going forward and most voters and NCC members may not even realize it.

Finally you have criticized the Tories!!

Glad you to see you are listening to me.

This one is so obvious I can’t understand why it has been neglected so long.
Pat Martin (NDP) tabled a private member’s bill a while back, proposing to ELIMINATE THE PENNY. There are millions to be saved but no one seems to have the balls to pursue this issue. Come on you politicians, get the lead out. It’s a no brainer!

Reduce public service and politician’s pay by 5% across the board (take the resulting public service strikes - it actually saves payroll!).
Then freeze salaries and benefits for 3 years.
Cut their pension plans back to private industry level.
Scrutinize pubic service and politician’s expense accounts.
Stop the expensing of frivolous stuff, e.g. haircuts meals, etc.
Stop stimulus spending.
Stop spending on Official Bilingualism.
Abolish the gun registry.
Abolish the Senate.
Replace Flaherty as Finance Minister.
Get the federal government out of areas they should not be in.
Get the Conservatives to behave as such, presently they are CINO.

The focus of both federal and provincial goverments needs to on how we are going to get back to balanced budgets and get on with it. This includes reducing the size of goverments and continuing to fund special interest groups just because it has done so in the past. Our economy is in much better shape than most other ngo’s and now is the time to take advantage of this preferred situation. Foreign investment is being attracted to Canada because, for the most part, it has been better managed and with less risk. These new investements must be used to move more quickly to the “new economy”. We cannot continue to be so dependent on our natural resources. Also, we need to add value to these resources and not be sending them off shore to do so. Priorties in my opinion need to be on research and development and education. Health care, while extremely important to most Canadians, needs to become far more efficient by taking the waste out of the delivery system.

First cut needs to be to subsidies to political parties, re payments for votes. The conservatives had it right last fall, just need a majority to get it passed. I disagree on cutting RCMP budgets. If anything they should double the no of officers on the streets, but first must fire 99% of the liberal judges who wouldn’t know justice if it bit them in the ass.

I think we all know the things that need to be done. Our politicians do as well. Even the leftist idiots realize their Utopian fantasy is just that. The problem is finding a Party with the will to change things. It seems in Canada a politician or Party that is committed to doing what is required to make things right is unelectable. The left, their media and the usual suspects prevent doing what’s right. The only thing that can change that is the people. We should take a good look at the Tea Party movement in the US for ideas and inspiration. They are making the difference. Even the MSM is finding they can no longer ignore them. Without a popular uprising our political class will never find the will to give up the power and reach of government into every aspect of our lives. People have to really want freedom and make their politicians understand that. I’m not sure a majority of Canadians have that will. We’re having the same conversation now as I recall from 3 decades ago and nothing has changed accept that we are further into decline and debt. It really is a shame that we had it all and have squandered it because we have become spoiled and lazy. Once freedom is lost it is no easy task getting it back. We stand on the brink of losing freedom completely from years of letting it trickle away do to apathy and living the “good life”. I know it seems like a drift from the 10% topic but it’s all symptomatic of the same nanny state disease.

One of the biggest savings would be the overhaul of the Official Languages Act. While it was supposed to provide service in the language of choice to
English and French speaking Canadaians, where numbers warrant, it has instead become a mechanism for spreading the French language across Canada, in places where it is not seen normally, or used very little. It even gives a worker in Calgary the right to work in French if it is their first spoken language. How crazy is that? That means that the supervisor has to be able to speak French to him, and his co-workers as well. And the number of people that identify themselves as fluently bilingual has only increased about 2% in forty years, despite the billions of dollars spent on it, and the many English-only people who have been denied jobs because they were unilingual. In practise, the OLA has only been an affirmative action program for the spread of the French language across Canada, while the English language is under assault in Quebec for decades. It’s time to end the insanity and save the money!!

There are many good suggestions to cut waste.
But the one I haven’t seen yet is following through on scrapping section 13, which passed with an overwhelming majority at the Winnipeg convention in Nov 2008.

S 13 is all about these reprehensible “Human Rights Commissions” that trample on our rights of Freedom of Religion and Freedom of speech.
These kangaroo courts persecute people with government money, and they have to pay their own legal bills. Such as a “trans sexual” male in St Catharines, who wanted to shower in the all female health club. And yes, he still had his male organs! I think the case was withdrawn AFTER the owner of the health club had spent tens of thousands on legal bills.

This Canadian GESTAPO has a 100% conviction rate, the victims in 99% of the cases are Christians stranding up for their rights. Such as NOT to rent a room at a B & B to two homosexual men. (The owners don’t rent to unmarried hetero couples either! Rather than give in, they closed the B & B AFTER having to pay a fine to the two homosexual extorsionists, who got their way with OUR tax dollars! Reprehensible.

1. Act on recommendations made by the Auditor General’s annual report vs ignoring them.

2. Department ministers appear to be little more than figureheads or yes men/women to their department’s operations. They need to “dig in” and personally review whats going on.

3. The government has to change the mind set in its departments and crown corporations.The bureacracy needs to be engaged/rewarded in “continuous improvement methods “by reviewing methods/processes with streamlining in mind, reduce waste, reduce costs, eliminate non value added practices.This would likely also result in fewer staff required which should be handled through attrition and early retirement incentives.
Cost savings should then be used to pay down the deficit.

Its way overdue for the federal government (especially a Conservative one ) to not be looking at ongoing sustainable cost reductions.