2w ago

Suggest your own spending cuts, Carney government tells CBC, Via Rail and other Crown corporations

www.thestar.com

29 comments

I seem to recall an election promise to increase the CBC's funding by $150m, so clearly Liberal voters weren't voting for a nearly $200m reduction.
- Was just looking for that bit as I seem to recall the exact same fucking thing. Here it is. I'm starting to keep receipts.
- The conservatives wanted to fully defund the CBC and unfortnately most of Canada has fallen into the two party trap. I'm not thrilled about the cuts but hopefully letting the corp decide what has to be cut is less harmful than it could be otherwise.
  
  I'm confused. Are you saying that Carney doesn't have to keep any of his campaign promises, so long as he doesn't do things that are quite as bad as the hypothetical actions of the party we were told was an existential threat to Canada?
  Apologies if that sounds rude, but I'm getting incredibly frustrated with folks who seem to want to give this government a pass on just about anything, even breaking their explicit campaign promises. Is this really how low the bar is now? If so, we're absolutely doomed.
  
  I'd have agreed with your sentiment if Carney didn't promise increased funding during the election campaign. A promise that was important to me. Now this is some bullshit. It can't be shrugged off with the rest of the "operational efficiencies" which were suggested during the campaign, because there was explicit statement to the opposite.
  
  "Well this shit sandwich sure is unpleasant, but at least it's fresh"
  
  Apologetics for Carney only hurt us now. It's time to put pressure on the government.
1. Marc Carney promised to increase CBC funding. Not slash it. This kind of bullshit combined with a flawed voting system, is exactly why people are losing trust in democracy.
2. You want Crown Corporations to save money? I'll give you savings.
Stop paying millions of dollars to use Microsoft Office. Instead, use LibreOffice.
Stop paying millions of dollars to use Microsoft Windows. Instead, use Linux.
- I'm all for what you're suggesting about software, but the training and I.T costs alone make me question the savings.
  Information technologists adept at supporting users of Microsoft products are a dime a dozen. Anything outside of that, and you're paying the big bucks and/or have a much smaller hiring pool.
- Yes, let's take away all the good productivity tools from our public broadcaster. That will surely help them.
  
  let's take away all the good productivity tools from our public broadcaster
  I think you misread. They suggested giving them better tools.
This is some bullshit!
Electoral reform when
He's asking them to propose ways of cutting spending. Spending is different from funding. They can cut operational funding and still get earmarked funding for certain projects that wouldn't have otherwise got off the ground.
Government loves to make funding announcements that turn out to have 'small print'.

29 comments