Editor, The Times:
Well, well, the bulldog-faced Irishman (Flaherty) has just pulled the scam of the century with the budget - in Canada's case anyway.
First Harper's neo-cons awarded the corporate friends who helped make the Conservative majority government possible.
Then they turn around and, with a sleight of hand, make the rest of us pay for it. Now how's that for simple-bold-face arrogance?
And there's more! Gutting of the Fisheries Act and other environmental rules is great for Enbridge, which was one of Harper's major contributors and one that we can be sure will continue into the future.
At Davos, when even Klaus Schwab (the founder of this annual meeting) was calling for a major reform of capitalism, Harper's answer was to get up and prattle about reforms to Canada's pension plan. One should have been warned.
As Naomie Klein pointed out in her book, Shock Doctrine, these far-righters never miss a chance to promote their 'rob the poor to pay the rich' visions upon us. Disasters real or imagined will do the trick, if all else fails.
Now, closer to home, the CBC, already cut severely back, is to be gutted completely.
Boy, Peladeau must be breaking out the champagne and Ezra Levant, who is part of the utterly lowest of the low, Sun TV, must be doing a dance on the tabletops.
So, as with the rest of the budget the misnamed Conservatives know how to award their friends and punish their enemies, and those right-wing ideologues see "mother corp" (the CBC) as enemy number one.
Sadly, the rest of Canada's useless corporate-owned media (with the exception of certain columnists) can be relied on to go along with Stephen Harper and his gang of undead Alberta dinosaurs.
A rough ride indeed ahead.
Dennis Peacock
Clearwater, B.C.