The Conservative spin-machine is trying to use the dinner at yesterday's First Ministers meeting to highlight just how gosh-darn fiscally responsible they are. Sure, Stephen Harper is pushing broad-based tax cuts that will do nothing to simulate the economy and will only drive up the deficit further than necessary. But hey, they drank $22 bottles of wine!
Prime Minister Stephen Harper was making a point about the global economic crisis when he provided a buffet dinner for the visiting premiers and aboriginal leaders Thursday night at Ottawa's Old City Hall. The PMO also put out a news release announcing that the cost per politician per plate was $25.95. The wine - Jackson Triggs 2008 - cost $22 a bottle. Kory Teneycke, the Prime Minister's director of communications, joked it was bottled Tuesday.
As for the food: vegetarian lasagna, Alberta sirloin or beef, roasted potatoes, seasonal vegetables, cheese, tea and coffee and some cake and fruit for dessert. "We are Main Street to the end," Mr. Teneycke said. "Tim Hortons and macaroni salad all the way."
You know, I'm not a stranger to Tim Horton's. But I have yet to visit a Tim Hortons where they serve Alberta sirloin, or wine. And for macaroni salad you've got to go to KFC. Has Kory ever even been to a Tim Hortons? Because I know his boss prefers Starbucks.
But you know, if Steve and Kory really wanted to impress us with their fiscal prudence, maybe they shouldn't do stuff like this:
The Conservative government has decided that U. S. aerospace giant Sikorsky will not have to pay $36-million in late penalties even though the maritime helicopter it is building for the Canadian Forces is being delivered two years late.
Wowee, that's a lot of double-doubles.
To burnish their fiscal prudence creds they could also avoid doing things like this:
Prime Minister Stephen Harper's enlarged cabinet could cost taxpayers an additional $3.9 million in salaries alone for extra ministers and staff.By my math, that's 1,959,798 coffee and muffin combos at Timmy's. I'm partial to the fruit explosion myself, although I do also enjoy the blueberry.
The total cost of staffing ministerial offices, roughly $24.2 million in salaries, has grown by 19 per cent with last week's shuffle and has jumped 42 per cent since the Tories presented their first cabinet in 2006.
But I'll tell you what, Steve and Kory. Stop wasting millions like that and when you have a First Ministers meeting, you can have Hy's cater it for all I care. Champagne and caviar all around. Save me the phony symbolism and try ACTUALLY BEING fiscally prudent rather than just trying to look like it.
Besides, only the uber wealthy will pay more than $15 for a bottle of wine... Recommend this Post on Progressive Bloggers
7 comments:
I won't be impressed by this nonsense until they start serving Kraft dinner and meat pies; real mainstreet food.
Better yet, they can bring their own damn lunch.
"Main Street to the end"... What a frickin' joke.
p.s. My Word Verification here is 'locon'. Heh. Serendipity.
Was that wine made in Canada?
Any GE ingredients in that lasagne or bovine growth hormones given to those cattle?
Not a concern of Mr. Harpers, hey.?
? And what about the coffee was it fair traded?Definitely not organic.
Were there listeriosis tends done on that cheese?
and who blew the surplus that the tories inherited? harper & co. that would buy a lot of mac & cheese.
What about pizza and beer, like the rest of us little people?
You can get some really nice wines for a lot less that $22 a bottle, have chicken (cheaper than beef)
They have macaroni salad at Tim Horton's?
lilian, you can keep calling it a "surplus" if you want.
But really what it is is overtaxation. The government taking more than it needs year after year from you and me. And what did they do with it at the end of the year? Was it rolled into next years budget? No it was firesale programs and expenditures not in the budget.
That is not proper management. Its not "savings" as you would have me believe. Its just end of year blowout spending without accountability.
Post a Comment