Budget

I haven't had much time to look through every single detail, but based on what I have seen, I believe it goes in the right direction, but still has plenty of room for improvement. I am glad to see EI rules loosened, more money infrastructure, but I also feel that permanent tax cuts for the middle class should be held off until the economy starts to recover. We do need tax cuts in the long-run, but since most will simply save the money it does little good, so better to what until we enter the phase of recovery. Also the size of the deficit is quite worrisome. Bad policies in the past years when the economy was good was what led to where we were at. Voting against the budget would be foolish, but I don't think the Liberals should support it without at least some changes. My suggestion is offer an amendment to correct the deficiencies and should the Tories support the amendment, then vote for it. Another election or a coalition are less than ideal and should be avoided if possible and based on this budget I don't think either are necessary. At the same time voting for it without changes will give Harper the impression he can continue his old ways. He has already caved on many aspects and I think a reasoned amendment that improves the budget, but doesn't radically alter it would be the best solution. Based on the various leaks, which I find unreliable, this seems to be the direction the Liberals are heading, but lets wait and see. I am at least glad the party hasn't just come out against the budget like the NDP and Bloc Quebecois have, mind you the Liberals have formed government before and plan to again so they don't want to make unrealistic demands that they could never deliver on, whereas the NDP and Bloc Quebecois can make ridiculous demands as they know they won't ever form government.

Tomorrow's Budget

The Conservatives bring down their budget tomorrow and on Wednesday we will find out the fate of the minority government. While it is almost a certainty the NDP and Bloc Quebecois will vote against the budget, the Liberal position is far from certain. The burden falls on them to make the right judgment. Having another election, forming a coalition, or letting the budget pass all contain risks and so I am glad to see the Liberals will take a wait and see attitude and not make a decision without putting some careful thought into it. The stakes are too high to play games. As for what should be in the budget, below is what I personally would like to see in the budget.

We are in a recession and so government's primary job should be trying to find a way to kick start the economy and at the very least minimizing the impact of the recession. Although, I normally oppose deficits, I believe that right now running a deficit is appropriate, however it should be a modest, not large one and one that will return to a balanced budget once the economy recovers. Otherwise, it should be a cyclical deficit, not a structural deficit. Some government spending is needed to kick start the economy, but overdoing it can carry many risks too so it is important to spend wisely and spend in areas that will have the greatest impact. Our infrastructure is in bad need of repair so I believe more funding for infrastructure should be a top priority as this will create jobs and also deal with areas that needed to be dealt with anyways. The main problem here is that in the past, there has been too much bureaucracy and it has taken way too long for the projects to get going, so by the time they get started the recession would be over. It is important the shovels are in the ground in the shortest time possible. I support loosening the EI rules as unemployment rises, but to ensure this doesn't cause a permanent drain on the treasury, I would support imposing a sunset clause of 2-5 years at which point it would revert back to the old EI rules unless renewed. More money for training and skills as many of the job losses are in dying industries so now is the time to help re-train workers so they can find jobs in new industries as when one industry goes under, new ones develop. A modest tax cut should also be offered but it should be aimed at low income Canadians and should be one that encourages spending not saving. Any tax cuts to the middle income and wealthy should be done in the form of tax credits for large purchases (i.e. homes and cars) as encouraging people to make more large purchases also stimulates the economy. Likewise business tax cuts should be for capital so that it encourages businesses to expand not save. Major tax cuts that lead to structural deficits should be avoided. Likewise another GST cut is a bad idea since had the Tories left the GST at 7%, our deficit would be much smaller than it is now. Bailouts for firms should be done sparingly and should have strings attached to them and only if firms comply with conditions should the money be available. In normal conditions, I would oppose bailouts under any circumstance, but under today's economy I suppor them in limited circumstances, but with conditions. In the case of the auto industry, they should bring wages in line with the Japanese automakers and be required to make more green cars and smaller compact cars, not more SUVs.

As for how the Liberals should vote, I believe they should consider one of three options depending on what is in the budget.

1. If the budget is totally unacceptable and does little to deal with the sliding economy, then vote against it and take the chance of an election or coalition (my preference is an election, although a coalition may be acceptable as an absolute last resort, although it should be no more than a year without going back to the public)

2. If the budget heads in the right direction, but needs some improvement, introduce an amendment to deal with its deficiencies and if the Tories support the amendment, the Liberals should support the budget, if they oppose it, they should oppose it.

3. If it is very similiar to the Liberals own planned budget, the vote for it without amendments.

In the case of the Bloc Quebecois, I cannot see them getting what they want. They only were able to vote in favour of the first two budgets as Harper dumped loads of money towards Quebec as the Tories believed their majority came through Quebec. If the last election showed the Tories anything, any future possible majority will come through Ontario, not Quebec. Finally for the NDP, the ideological difference between them and the Tories is so large that it would be next to impossible to support the same budget without one party caving on their principles. I am aware that grand coalitions between Conservatives and Social Democrats are quite common in Europe (i.e. Germany today) but usually both the Conservatives and Social Democrats are more centrist than their counterparts here in Canada, thus making it possible. Besides the NDP is a perennial opposition party that is about promoting a certain ideology and pulling the country in their direction, not about actually forming government, whereas the Liberals are about actually forming government, so they play a different role.

Obama is finally president

Although we knew this day was coming for the past 10 weeks, it has finally arrived and Obama is finally the 44th president of the United States. Today was largely a day of celebration, while tomorrow the hard work begins. Obama no doubt faces some daunting challenges both on the home front and global front. Still although he may be entering the White House at a less than ideal time, this is a time when we need strong leaders and I believe Obama is the right person to lead the country through this difficult time. Many people argued Obama's great speeches, charisma, and call to unity were symbolic and meaningless when it came to how he would argue, but I would argue that if we are going to make it through the current crisis, one thing the US and the world needs is a strong sense of unity and willingness to work together. Under Obama, he can help bring people together rather than polarize the country. Polarizing a country is never good, but it is especially bad during a recession. I don't expect Obama to be a messiah and I do expect he will make some mistakes as every president has and any human being would, but for me the main question will be in 2012, is the United States and the world better than it is now or worse. I am quite confidence the former will be the answer and that is ultimately how I will judge Obama's presidency.

Today was also a historic one in many cases as Martin Luther King Jr's dream of creating a society where people would be judged by the content of their character not the colour of their skin became reality. Some will say race should be a total non-issue, but I would argue the election of an African-American president is a big one when one considers the United States history. As recently as the 60s, many Southern states still had segregation laws that required Blacks to use separate facilities that were often of poorer quality and used literacy tests and various other methods to keep as many Blacks as possible away from the polls. This is no doubt a shameful part of American history, but the fact they can move beyond that to one day elect a Black president shows the ability of the nation to change and that no matter how many awful things it does, it has the power to do much good and more importantly the power to correct its mistakes. I can fully understand why for some many Blacks not just in the United States, but globally this is such a historic moment. Many who had grand dreams always faced the worry that they could never achieve those dreams not because they weren't capable, but simply because of the colour of the skin and the way society judged them for that. With the inaugration of Barack Obama, this has sent a message to Black people (and people of all races as a matter of fact) than you can reach dreams if you have the will and the desire and that the colour of your skin will not act as a barrier. While the effects of this may not be known immediately, I think this will give a strong sense of hope to many Black people who simply felt their colour of their skin held them back from reaching their full potential, but now it is shown this is a relic of the past and that the future is wide open. I especially understand how emotional this must be for many older African-Americans who saw first hand the horrors of racism, segregation, and Jim Crow Laws. To many, this is a sweet vindication that their struggles for equality and freedom have paid off and as painful as they were at the moment, the day that Martin Luther King Jr's dream would be realized would come in their lifetime. I remember when I was only 13 how a big a deal the election of Nelson Mandela in South Africa was, so I think the election of someone from a race who historically faced much discrimination and injustices is truly historic and something to be proud of. Here in Toronto, many in the Black community were rejoicing at this moment and certainly for many, the history of facing discrimination is all to real, even here in Canada.

Like any historic moment, the question asked is always where were you? Today, I decided to take my lunch break early at 11:50 saw I could watch Obama's swearing in and his speech when they actually happened. We had a television in our lunch room so that is where I watched out and many others where I worked were also there to watch this historic moment. While the swearing in seemed to have a few hitches, his speech hit the right notes. In may have not been his best in style, but when looking at the substance, he said the right things. Now he needs to deliver on those and all the evidence I have seen today suggests he will.

Bush Legacy

In less than 24 hours, Bush will no longer be president of the United States, which all I can say is good riddance. He was without question one of the worse presidents in US history, although I am skeptical to say he is the worst ever, rather I would say he is the worst in the last 100 years. In the 1800s you had some pretty bad presidents such as James Buchanan who advocated the expansion of slavery and you also had several cases of unprovoked attacks on foreign countries such as the Mexican-American War, Spanish-American War, War of 1812 etc. However, attacking countries unprovoked was the norm in the 1800s and widely accepted and likewise done by many other countries. So in the absolute sense he maybe wasn't the worst, but when one considers how much we have evolved as a society over the past 100 years, saying he is the worst ever in a relative sense, is something I would wholeheartedly agree with. So below I will summarize his legacy. Obviously only time will tell how he is judged, but I highly doubt he will be vindicated. If anything, I wouldn't surprised if he is judged far more harshly in 30 years when the classified documents become available and the full extent of how bad the government was is revealed. Even Nixon at least did some good things as president, whereas with Bush, it is hard to find anything good he did. While he may have done a few good things, they were mostly minor policies and almost every major issue, he was on the wrong side of the issue.

Foreign Policy

On September 11, 2001, the United States faced a horrible attack in New York City, Washington, and Pennsylvania. Much of the world was sympathetic to the US and even many countries that normally had cool relations with the US were fully behind it. As one French paper read "we are all Americans". This was a time when Bush could have united the world behind the US, but instead of uniting the world, his reckless foreign policy increased anti-Americanism to all time highs and brought public opinion of the US to all time lows globally. Whatever sympathy the world had for the US after 9/11, he did everything to ensure it disappeared. The decision to attack Afghanistan to hunt down Bin Ladin was the right one which even Obama fully supports. However, rather than going after Bin Ladin who the culprit behind 9/11, Bush became focused on Saddam Hussein, who was a brutal dictator, but had nothing to do with 9/11 and posed absolutely no threat to the US or any of its allies. In the lead up to the Iraq War, Bush used blatant lies to try and make the case for invading Iraq. Traditional allies like Canada, Germany, and France who refused to sign on, were threatened with retaliation and made clear that there was no accepting of those taking different views. After failing to get a UN resolution, the US went and attacked Iraq anyway which was a violation of international law. An attack on a sovereign country is only permissible under two circumstances: it is in legitimate self-defence or it has UN authorization and in which case Iraq met neither. After Iraq was invaded, the US had no plan to deal with the aftermath. Instead Bush had this delusional idea the Iraqis would welcome them as liberators. Instead, the country has fallen into chaos, terrorism has risen, and as bad as Saddam Hussein was, in many ways Iraq is even worse off. This also costed massive amounts of money that could have been much better spent elsewhere. He also showed blatant disregard for both the Geneva Convention and the US constitution. Whether it be Abu Gharib or Guantanamo Bay, these were both examples of blatant disregard for both the above. In fact the whole reason Guantanamo Bay was located in Cuba, not on US soil, is because such place would violate the US constitution and would be ordered shut down by the courts. As awful as terrorists are, every person deserves the right to a fair trial, legal counsel, and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. Even the most brutal serial killers are given this and so should terorrists. I don't condone terrorism and nor do most others, however, mistakes can happen and people can be accused who are not guilty, which is why the US constitution has the position of innocent until proven guilty and the right to a fair trial. In addition, one does not defeat terrorism by descending to their level. In the meantime, rather than hunting down Osama Bin Ladin, he is still free. In the mean time civil rights at home have been frequently disregarded and he created a culture of fear and division

Domestic Policy

If Bush was a disaster on the foreign policy, he was equally bad on domestic policy. In fact it was domestic policy more so than foreign policy that turned public opinion in the US so strongly against him and why he has one of the lowest approval ratings ever of an outgoing president. In 2000, the US had a strong economy and a surplus. Under the Bush presidency, the national debt doubled for $5 billion to $10 billion and their current account deficit also increased. Bush advocated deficit financed tax cuts mainly targeted towards the wealthy. Tax cuts for the wealthy are not wrong in themselves, but should only be done if the country can afford to do so, which clearly the US could not and tax cuts should go to those of lower and middle income Americans before the wealthy. He created the patriot act which violated many Americans rights and wiretapped phones without a warrant which also is a violation of the US constitution. The sheer incompetence of his presidency was no more evident than during Hurricane Katrina were the response of a terrible natural disaster was slow and inadequate. Likewise, his love for de-regulation partly played a role in creating our current economic mess. Excessive regulation is a bad thing, but that doesn't mean you blindly de-regulate everything, rather it is about balance which the Bush administration lacked. While the economic downturn is not solely Bush's fault, his actions did more to make it worse rather than alleviate it. On social issues, Bush also was a strongly divisive figure who wanted to stack the court with conservative judges who would overturn socially liberal laws that Conservatives hated. I agree that judges should follow the letter of the law, but that also means upholding the constitution, not finding ways to ignore it when it doesn't suit one's ideology. He even tried to pass an amendment to ban gay marriage. This is not an issue of him supporting or opposing gay marriage which reasonable people can agree to disagree on, rather it is a complete pervision of the constitution. The constitution is about giving people rights, not taking away rights. On the environment, he was a disaster too. Pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol sent the wrong signal to the rest of the world, but considering the US has a long isolationist past and mistrust of international organizations, he could have at least shown strong leadership on tackling environmental problems without necessarily signing onto Kyoto. Instead he did absolutely nothing to deal with global warming and any progress the US made here was due to actions by state governments, not the federal government. Likewise he favoured drilling in the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge despite the fact this was an ecologically fragile area. Thankfully enough moderate Republicans in the senate broke ranks to defeat this. Rather than finding ways to end America's addiction to oil, he simply wanted to find more places to drill. He gutted several environmental acts too. There were many other disastrous domestic policies that I don't have time to list.

Canada-US relations

Many on the right argue Bush was a free trader and that he was good for Canada-US relations and things will get worse under a Democrat president. I would argue that relations between our two countries were the worst they've been in many years. While Canada and the US have traditionally had frosty relations as Canada has historically had a strong anti-American under current and the US back in the 1800s saw Canada as a mere extension of their country under their Manifest Destiny and Monroe Doctrine. However those days are now long gone and with our countries being increasingly intertwined, the days of hostile relations should be a thing of the past. Yet under Bush, he ensured either we had bad relations or if we complied with many of their wishes they would be bad for Canada. I cannot list all the bad parts in our relationship, but I will list just a few. It is true that Raymond Chretien's statement saying Canada would prefer Al Gore won and Francois Ducros calling Bush a moron were not appropriate diplomatically even if most Canadians shared this view. Still this was minor compared to how he treated us. The reality is he was unwilling to work with leaders who didn't share his worldview whereas a good president would understand the importance of good relations even if the leaders of the two countries do not share the same ideology. Obama certainly understand this, which is why I am sure he will get along well with whoever is in power in Canada, be it a Liberal PM, Conservative PM, or god forbid an NDP one. After 9/11, Bush toughened up the border security leading to long line-ups and some Republicans even called for building a border fence. When it comes to border security, it was the Democrats, not the Republicans who stood up for keeping the free flow between the two countries which is just as vital as free trade. In 1981 when I was born, Europe had long line ups and required one to carry a passport whereas between Canada and the US, line ups were short and usually only a few questions asked and only a driver's licence was needed. Today, their are long line ups, passports required, extensive checks whereas in Europe, they have abolished their border controls completely. Now I am not suggesting we should go this far, but the stricter checks were not necessary, especially considering none of the 9/11 hijackers came through Canada even though some Republican politicans repeated this falsehood. For all this talk of Bush being a free trader, we had relatively few trade disputes under the Clinton administration, however under Bush the softwood lumber dispute dragged on for six years and despite several court wins by Canada, Bush stated he would ignore them since the US was not bound by international agreements, they could do whatever suited their interest much as they did with other agreements. It was only in 2006, when Harper signed an agreement that placed an export tax on our lumber exports, restrictions on imports of softwood lumber and could be ripped up in 2 years time. The deal signed in 2006 was not a good deal as some claim, but clearly a bad deal. Some could argue the US was going to continue to fight us until the industry went out of business so we took the best deal possible. Whether it was the best possible or not, it was a lousy deal and would have never been necessary if he followed NAFTA. So for those claiming the Republicans are free traders and the Democrats are protectionist, the Republicans may talk the talk on free trade, but they don't walk the walk. Finally when Canada had a legitimate disagreement over the Iraq War, Bush made sure we paid for. We disagreed with Reagan on Star Wars and Apartheid and with Clinton on the Cuban Embargo Act, but we respectfully agreed to disagree and moved on and none of those cases we were punished for taking a different approach. Both Reagan and Clinton understood we were different countries and would sometimes take different approaches while Bush was unwilling to listen or learn about our side. The fact he still thinks he is well liked globally today shows how delusional he is and ignorant on foreign policy. After the Iraq War, Bush cancelled his visit to Canada, but instead visited with Australian PM John Howard at his ranch, who did back the Iraq War. This was an example of diplomacy at its worst and one former president Clinton rightly condemned. In late 2003, Bush released a list of countries eligible to apply for contracts in the re-construction of Iraq, but only those who either supported or at least didn't oppose the invasion were permitted to apply. This decision was called dumb by John Kerry and likewise Germany even threatened to take the US to the WTO over this as this violates WTO rules. The administration eventually backed down. But if there was any message from either of those two incidents, it was that countries were expected to blindly follow the US and those who dared to take different approaches, even if supported by the majority of their population, would pay. Most past presidents usually placed Canada as one of their most important allies, be they Republican or Democrat, whereas to Bush we barely registered on his radar. And when we played a big role in helping out in Afghanistan where the real threat was (and we did far more than the most so called coalition of the willing countries did) or took in the US planes on 9/11, he refused to even thank us, but rather showed contempt for us when we took different positions. Bush was not a friend of Canada and relations were not good with the US under Bush, not because of the Liberals being hostile to him (although this didn't help), but due to his actions. Obama may not be perfect for Canada, but I am almost positive relations will be far better under his administration than Bush. Tomorrow, I will post on Obama's first day (or at least half day) as US president. For all the bad things Bush did, hopefully this will be a lesson learned and at least we get a really good president to follow so for all the bad things the United States can do, it can do good things too. After all, when a country with a legacy of slavery 150 years ago and segregation only 40 years ago, can evolve to the point it can elect a Black president, this shows the ability of the country to change for the good. If Bush represented the ugly side of the US, Obama represents all the great things about the United States and hopefully he can once again restore their confidence domestically and their image globally.