This week's budget was a tour de force.  A blizzard of small details; a bonanza of talking points; a bathtub full of suds – but where was the substance?  Where was the overarching vision tackling the big issues facing Canada in this the second decade of the new millenium?   What, other than the polling booth, was the point of it all? 

Not one of the multitude of measures offfered up for consumption, nor even a combination of cash handouts, added up to a single significant contribution to Canada's future.  For all the talk about improving productivity, to take just one example, the government failed to extend valid and valuable rapid write-offs for technology purchases.  Instead it trumpeted tariff reductions which the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters Association called a "marginal benefit" ($300 million compared to industry revenues of $500 billion) and quietly raised the cost of labour by increasing employment insurance premiums.  This contradictory and ultimately self-defeating approach utterly fails to improve the overall competitive position of our manufacturing industries.

Innovation was another favourite buzz word in the budget.  Again, too many small handouts diluted any hope of making major gains in any one field.  One look at this government's track record in supporting Canada's research and development (R&D) efforts says it all.  Since 2005, the ratio of R&D to GDP (the standard measure of perfomance) has steadily dropped from 2.05% to 1.84%.  Yet the benchmark established years ago by Canada's Lamontagne Report is 2.5% and the official US target is currently 3%. Even if you add up all the so-called R&D expenditures in Mr. Harper's budget section devoted to innovation (pages 67 and 68), not enough was given to reverse Canada's downward trend.  Worse yet, we aren't even setting our sights on keeping up with competitors in the United States.

The same can be said for virtually every other subject (and there were many) addressed in the budget.  Yes, there were lots of treats – but Canada as a whole will suffer, slowly and almost imperceptibly, because we'll have been tricked into believing that a blizzard of small gifts equates to bona fide leadership.

I surely hope the continual downgrading of Canada's potential, particularly in R&D, is not the catalyst which allows the USA to gain a huge lead.  I'm appalled at the seemingly lack of government and industrial leadership needed to plan for the future.  The excuse that our size of population thwarts any attempt to involve ourselves in expensive endeavours is crap. In that case, simply specialize.

Hmmm, not sure what happened to my first comment (it is missing a few words: I must have been half asleep or 'my computer ate them').  In any case, it was supposed to say that your description for the Speech from the Throne equally describes the budget: tired, old, same old, same old.

Thinking on it more, I fear everything went according to plan, and Canadians are still euphoric from an Olympic nationalistic orgy to get too worked up over anything in the budget or the Speech from the throne.  Except, of course, for the idea of changing the national anthem (which was like casting a shadow on our newly achieved euphoria).

This buys Harper time, but not a majority.  He'll try to act like he has one, but his Olympic bounce won't last, so the opposition should continue to hammer away at all the important issues.   

The best coverage of the budget -- past, but reflects on the present one -- was in the Toronto Star by the always fine writer, Susan Delacourt:

"Women getting less of Tories' Cash: New Study Says Conservative Spending is More Men Friendly": http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/774556--women-getting-less-of-tories-cash

This article, and the study it is based on by Kathleen Lahey, created a stir for a bit, but then dissipated.  Where's the outcry?  Basically this is proof positive that the Cons are leaving women in the dust.  Let's hope women remember this at the polling station when the time comes.  I know I will.

Here's what worries me about this whole charade.  Canadians seem quite happy with this budget. No high decibel outcries, no woe is us, no real response whatsoever. Which simply makes me crazy. I am surrounded by idiots. There is more vision in a pair of binoculars than in this budget. Oh, and did you catch Jimbo's new Preston Manning-like makeover, complete, I am almost certain, with botox? I am awash in mediocrity and insipidity. There is a difference between Canada and countries like Spain. There, everybody has an opinion and it is voiced loudly, usually over a copa and tapas - here there is jocular discussion of the weather over a double-double. Makes one want to get out..but that's not very Canadian of me - or is it?? 

Your description of the Speech from the Throne, "It screeched and lurched and twisted like an old, tired barbed wire fence blowing in a desolate wind." 

In otherwords, this government has no new ideas.  Flaherty's hairdo was the only new thing that 3 months of prorogation brought.

I hadn't thought of the budget that way at all.  I guess all I heard was that there'd be no new taxes and spending would continue.  So I kind of relaxed.  All the rest of it, I assumed, was doing good things that didn't directly affect me but was adding to the positive side of the ledger.  If what you say is true, then I confess I was one Canadian who was fooled.  I really hope you're wrong, because I do believe we need governments to implement a lot of solid and steady moves to emerge from this recession with all our advantages supported and enhanced.  What's worrying me a little is this fuss over Oh Canada.  If Mr. Harper is backtracking on that so quickly, what else did he get wrong?  And doesn't he recognize it ahead of time, or is he only going by instant polling results or letters to the editor?  Not a very reassuring thought, somehow.