On needless cuts

The Globe and Mail reports that the Cons are pushing forward with another set of arbitrary cuts to government operations:

Federal government departments and agencies are being told to reallocate the least useful 5 per cent of their expenditures to more important things. And if the cabinet can find a better way to spend the money, the department will lose it altogether...

Over a four-year period, all departments and agencies will be required to undergo the self-examination, beginning with 17 that must make their reallocations before the next budget.

This year's round includes Ottawa-area museums, the Canadian Heritage Department, Foreign Affairs, the Canadian International Development Agency, Transport Canada, the Canada Revenue Agency, Finance and some smaller agencies...

Pierre-Alain Bujold, another spokesman for the Treasury Board, said every department selected for review this year must identify the 5 per cent of its program spending that it considers to be the lowest-priority or lowest-performing. The departments will then determine how those funds could be reallocated internally to higher-priority programming.

The federal cabinet will decide whether the reallocation plans are appropriate, or if a program elsewhere within the government could put the funds to a better use.

It's worth noting that the agencies chosen for the first round of cuts include some which are already well-known to be lacking for resourcesin ways which affect the federal government's bottom line far more significantly than the Cons' proposed cuts. For example, the Canada Revenue Agency was already unable to collect $18 billion in back taxes due to a lack of resources - and that was before the Cons decided to add more obligations without any apparent increase in funding.

Once again, though, the Cons apparently can't be bothered to try to figure out which federal dollars are already producing a worthwhile return, or where more money may in fact be needed. Instead, they're planning to simply assume that a significant portion of current spending should be chopped for no apparent reason.

Moreover, the Cons' ultimate goal is highlighted by their declaration that Cabinet will have the final say on whether or not to reallocate funding within the same department. From that announcement, it's painfully clear that any department wanting to keep the funding in question will have to justify future spending on a purely political basis rather than one having anything to do with the effectiveness of the funding.

As Jeffrey Simpson notes in his column on the same topic, the Cons' action can't even be justified based on any real concern about current federal finances. Instead, it looks merely to be one of the stronger indications yet that the Cons see Canada's entire government apparatus as nothing more than a tool for their own political use. And it's long past time for the costs of that kind of attitude to be front and centre in public discussions about Deceivin' Stephen's tenure.