Liberals question Conservatives on job numbers and stimulus delays

OTTAWA - The Harper government is deceiving Canadians about its economic stimulus plan by inflating job creation numbers and altering its own stimulus timelines, Liberal MPs said today.

“The government’s own figures in Budget 2010 show how they’ve fudged the facts in order to make themselves look good,” said Liberal Industry Critic Marc Garneau. “On both job creation and infrastructure delays, there are cracks in the government’s rhetoric.”

Liberal MPs questioned Transport Minister John Baird and Industry Minister Tony Clement at two different committees today - Infrastructure and Industry - to try and get some answers. They pointed out how the formula used to calculate the government’s job creation numbers is deliberately misleading, while they changed the wording around timelines in Budget 2010 from the same wording in Budget 2009.

“The government is telling Canadians that 220,000 jobs will have been created by the end of this year,” said Liberal Western Economic Diversification Critic Sukh Dhaliwal. “But this calculation is made using a formula that counts on permanent fiscal measures, when in fact the Economic Action Plan is only temporary.”

By using multipliers for permanent spending on page. 281 of the budget to calculate the job targets on page. 285, the government’s job creation numbers are faulty.

“The Conservatives have also snuck misleading words into the budget to let themselves off the hook for not spending at the height of the recession,” said Liberal Crown Corporations Critic Bonnie Crombie. “As the supplementary estimates reveal, the Conservatives were anything but timely when it came to doling out their stimulus money.”
In Budget 2009, the Conservatives promised “timely” measures to support the economy “within the next 120 days.” Yet in Budget 2010, that wording is changed to “Timely: to support the economy when private demand is weakest.”

Nearly 45 percent of the Infrastructure Stimulus Fund was not delivered this fiscal year, while almost half (48 percent) of the Communities Component of the Building Canada Fund and the Provincial/Territorial Base Funding also remains unspent. A full 93 percent of the Green Infrastructure Fund has also not been delivered.
“The Conservatives changed the commitment in their budget because they couldn’t meet their initial timeline,” concluded Mr. Garneau. “Instead of being honest about their failure to deliver on their Budget 2009 commitments, the government simply changed the script to suit their purposes.”

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Contact:
Office of Marc Garneau, MP: (613) 996-7267
Office of Sukh Dhaliwal, MP: (613) 992-0666
Office of Bonnie Crombie, MP: (613) 943-1762