The House that Jack Sold Out

Let's count the ways that Jack Layton is selling out.

1. Jack is willing to support the government on a budget deal.

   But Jack told us that he'd only support the government if they held a referendum on proportional representation. We have an election coming up within the next 8 months, so now is a prime time to make a referendum deal.

2. Jack is willing to overlook corruption for $4.6 billlion.

But Jack said that wanted to "restore integrity and accountability in government." Now he's decided to support a corrupt government. It works out to about "250 million per NDP MP. Nineteen sponsorship programs, one for each soul." Good work improving accountability, Jack!. I'm now a lot less cynical that politicans will address corruption as soon as they find it.

3. Jack wants to "create opportunities and jobs."

   However, Jack's spending deal will cost Canadians about 340,000 jobs. Though, to be fair, he did save some jobs. Those being jobs for Liberal MPs, Liberal bureacrats, and advertising executives. Though, I always thought that the NDP was more into saving low-end jobs, not high-end jobs.

4. Jack thinks this deal will greatly improve social programs.

   However, Paul Wells shows us that Jack has found very little money; on the order of about $15 million for this budget (who cares about future years if there's going to be an election in January on Martin's timetable). Put another way, Alberta gets only $1.5 million a year, or about $0.5 million for tuition and EI training. To put that into perspective, even if all of it went to reducing tuition (which it won't), we'd see about a 0.2% decrease in the tuition iincrease for next year. It's really not much money and certainly not enough to have any major impact. Jack seems to feel that corruption can be supported for miniscule budgetary changes.

5. Jack thinks he's done something for Canadians.

   Clearly Jack doesn't know math, because even with his support, Paul Martin is only at 151 votes when he needs 154 votes (and yes, Paul doesn't know math either, but then Paul knows very little indeed; I expect better from Jack). So, Jack is promising to try to prop up the government for nothing. Meanwhile, Paul Martin can keep using his executive authority to cover-up the scandal.

I used to respect Jack and he had my vote at one time. But at this point, Jack is racing to the bottom with Paul Martin for who is most likely to lead the party that gets my vote. Unless Layton moves figurative mountains very soon, the federal NDP has likely lost my vote until it turfs Layton.