Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Flaherty has a tantrum

Looks like the stress of his sheer incompetence is starting to catch-up with Decivin’ Steven’s Mike Harris-trained finance minister, Jim Flaherty. He just has a temper tantrum on the floor of the House of Commons.

As Garth Turner reports, Liberal MP Blair Wilson was presenting a petition for his constituents about the broken Harper promise not to tax income trusts, a broken promise that cost some 2 million Canadians over $25 billion.

Garth reports:

Mr. Flaherty, at this moment, starts to mutter and heckle under his breath. He looks hostile and angry.

“The petitioners therefore call upon the Conservative minority government to admit that the decision to tax income trusts was based on flawed methodology and incorrect assumptions,” my colleague continued, “secondly, to apologize to those who were unfairly harmed by this broken promise, and finally to repeal the 31.5% tax on income trusts.”


By this time Flaherty is in full voice, calling across the aisle at the MP reading. He repeats over and again, “That’s so stupid.”

Ladies and gentleman, your Minister of Finance. Yes Jim, the concerns of millions of Canadians whose life savings you wiped-out are “stupid.” Canadians whom you were elected to represent, whom you swore an oath to serve. Stupid. Classy Jim.

At least he didn’t cry “this is unfair!”

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

He has the vitriol of a tiny Irish leprachaun and is a tort liability lawyer in his private life!!!!

The result was two failed leadership campaigns for the Ontario PCs.

Even though I supported him on the income trust thing, this episode shows that there are limits to his political career. If the government survives, Harper needs to replace him in the next cabinet shuffle.