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Aboriginal Affairs $1B spending shortfall


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Meanwhile, the Liberals were able to run surpluses while funding both Aboriginal Affairs and the CBC.

Chretien cut over $400 million from CBC. He also cut healthcare, education, environment, fisheries, defence, science and technology, foreign affairs, natural resources, and others. Many of those cuts were in the 30-40% range. And they did all that while raising taxes.

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Or, take both things, and put them to better use.

Well for the cost of a case of beer a year, I would rather keep the CBC than have to rely on some form of US style shock radio Rush Limbaugh model. Some good programming without all the mindless ads to deal with. What was the last Economic Action Plan ad you saw that you remember and or meant anything to you ...

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Sorry to let more facts get in the way - but not only has Federal funding for Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development largely increased since the Chretien years - but the provinces have hugely increased what they spend as well. Every once in a while it would be nice to hear you say "I didn't know that".

Link: http://www.fraserinstitute.org/uploadedFiles/fraser-ca/Content/research-news/research/publications/Aboriginal-spending-2013.pdf.pdf

There's a tricky little thing the government does to inflate its appearance of spending on Aboriginal peoples:

Included in the Aboriginal Affairs budget are the amounts the government spends on negotiators and lawyers, etc., fighting against Aboriginal land claims and rights .

Pretty slick trick, eh?

And the Fraser Institute includes that in the spending per Aboriginal person? :/

Also, the starting point chosen by the Fraser Institute was at the time Canada was delaying signing the UN Convention on Genocide ... at risk of exposing our own genocide and furiously attempting to appear to be increasing funding ... by padding it with their own expenses.

Just another pile of crap 'research' by the Fraser Institute, and there have been many.

.

Edited by jacee
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Also, the starting point chosen by the Fraser Institute was at the time Canada was delaying signing the UN Convention on Genocide ... at risk of exposing our own genocide and furiously attempting to appear to be increasing funding ... by padding it with their own expenses.

Just another pile of crap 'research' by the Fraser Institute, and there have been many.

.

Nice deflection with the lawyers - much as I don't like them, they don't bill a billion. The starting point is the 40's and no matter how you slice it - funding has gone up continuously at the Federal level by a large amount and an incredible amount at the Provincial level. This isn't about trying to bash - or credit Harper - just re-stating that there's plenty of money in the system - billions.

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There's a tricky little thing the government does to inflate its appearance of spending on Aboriginal peoples:

Included in the Aboriginal Affairs budget are the amounts the government spends on negotiators and lawyers, etc., fighting against Aboriginal land claims and rights .

Legal fees are accounted in AANDC spending reports. It's a single digit percentage of the total funding.

https://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1359569904612/1359569939970

Between $46.7 and $105.8 million a year out of an $8 billion a year budget

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Well for the cost of a case of beer a year, I would rather keep the CBC than have to rely on some form of US style shock radio Rush Limbaugh model.

Yeah, CTV with all of their shock programming.

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Generally not. The bureaucracy usually makes the services more expensive and less effective.

Every government at every level makes promises that when they cut a department it will only affect the back room people. First, that never happens. Second, it assumes the back room people aren't doing anything which contributes to the work. They do. If you actually want to cut bureaucracy you do it by changing the rules and procedures. That's not what government does when it's focused on cutting budgets. Instead if just gets rid of bodies. But the bodies were taking care of the paperwork and organization. It might be ridiculously bureaucratic red tape and overly complex procedures, but if the rules aren't changed (and they aren't) then it still has to be done. When there's fewer bodies it gets done way slower, and it always impacts front line service.

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I agree.

The CPC have done a terrible job fiscally.

But that's largely because the people like a lower GST.

Now if they were to eliminate the CBC and move those funds over to AANDC then that would be an improvement in fiscal management.

This is an inane viewpoint. The Liberals were able to keep their budgets in order so they must be better than the tories. Gee, the most basic of fact check on that would look back and determine that the economic times were WAY different back then than they have been for the past seven years.

it's true the GST is lower. Taxes overall are lower. But most economists believe the best way to stimulate an economy when it's slowing is through tax cuts. Maybe our economy would have gotten much worse in 2008 had it not been for the tax cuts. I dunno. I do know that the only reason Chretien didn't spend more money was that he regarded the taxpayers bank account as his to spend only on things which benefited the Liberal party. And since the opposition was divided and without any real threat to him during most of his term, he had no interest in spending.

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Because overall its good to have programming that is not tied to producing a profit for a board.

Why? And why are outdated mediums the best way to do that? Get rid of CBC now, and almost no one will notice. Save the $960M a year.

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Nice deflection with the lawyers - much as I don't like them, they don't bill a billion. The starting point is the 40's and no matter how you slice it - funding has gone up continuously at the Federal level by a large amount and an incredible amount at the Provincial level. This isn't about trying to bash - or credit Harper - just re-stating that there's plenty of money in the system - billions.

It will be interesting to see the analyses done that evaluate the "gaps in funding" referred to in the TRC recommendations.

Until it's done properly ... I agree to disagree.

.

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You might just be surprised who would notice if they tried that. I am sure Harper would love to, but he wouldnt dare.

A few stay at home people with nothing better to do? I certainly wouldn't notice, or care.

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Legal fees are accounted in AANDC spending reports. It's a single digit percentage of the total funding.

https://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1359569904612/1359569939970

Between $46.7 and $105.8 million a year out of an $8 billion a year budget

Not all of AANDCs legal costs are related to defending litigation.

Not all ...but most.

Do you get my point?

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Well for the cost of a case of beer a year, I would rather keep the CBC than have to rely on some form of US style shock radio Rush Limbaugh model. Some good programming without all the mindless ads to deal with. What was the last Economic Action Plan ad you saw that you remember and or meant anything to you ...

False choice.
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Because overall its good to have programming that is not tied to producing a profit for a board.

Television isn't an essential service. How many extra hospital beds, or doctors, or nurses, etc would 900 million dollars provide? Cable television is a ridiculous allocation of finite tax dollars in this day and age.

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