Jim Flaherty will introduce a new budget this Tuesday, and it promises to be a real winner. Canadians have come to expect these things, given the Finance Minister’s impressive track record of preaching the good word while laying a big turd. Indeed Flaherty’s fame as a financial genius is widespread, but there is more to this man than meets the eye. With Tuesday’s budget, he intends to show he has another trick up his sleeve.
Dim Jim says this budget will make it tougher for terrorists and criminals to launder money through charities. Honestly, it’s about time. Caught up in the vicious 4-year election cycle, Canadian politicians have an unfortunate habit of trading short-term gain for long-term pain. Our Finance Minister knows it should be the other way around. That’s why he, like no one before him, is going to tackle Canada’s biggest problem: criminals and terrorists using charities to launder money. The idea has traction.
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is already disproportionately attacking Canada’s worst offenders, environmental charities. The Agency started at the bottom, auditing a small fry like Environmental Defense, but has now made its way to the kingpin of the terrorist/criminal charity world: The David Suzuki Foundation. Why? Because in speaking out against Canada’s Hiroshima, these groups are crossing the line between charity and political organization. Let’s face it, we all know David Suzuki, who once masqueraded as one of the top 10 Greatest Canadians, is a criminal mastermind who uses his environmental charity as a front to support terrorists. That’s just the nature of things.
Exhibit A: Terrorism in action by Canada’s most wanted.
The Nature of Things
Seriously, though, Flaherty’s action can’t come soon enough. It has been two years since Ottawa gave environmental groups terrorist status, and one can only imagine how many acts of terrorism they have committed in Canada since then. If you ask Joe Oliver, eco-nuts have already hijacked regulatory processes, exploited loopholes, and furthered their radical ideological agenda. Never mind that each of these charges applies to his Conservative government… Canadians are too crippled by fear of home-schooled vegans to worry about that.
To appease the public, Minister Flaherty knows that this budget must speak to some key truths. He knows it’s time for this government to start taking public safety seriously. He knows it’s time for this government to draw a clear line between charity and politics. He knows that the line should stand west of Saskatchewan.
While others might waffle, there will be no limbo for Jimbo. With Tuesday’s budget he will set that line in stone and declare that Alberta is Canada’s sacred land. Yet Flaherty knows that simply saying this is not as good as doing it. He remembers trying unsuccessfully to talk a deficit into a surplus back in 2008, and he won’t make that mistake again.
Flaherty will affirm that he is here for average Canadians – people who hate the penny, resent accessible Employment Insurance, and loathe the CBC. These people crave Economic Action Plan ads; they want them plastered on every street corner, and filling every commercial break during televised hockey games. Flaherty speaks for the Canadian worker that wants part-time, low paying employment, and who feels it is appropriate to brag about ranking in the “middle of the pack” for OECD job creation since the recession. Simply put, he represents Canadians who are proud of their collection of participant ribbons. Can you count yourself among them? If not, go hug a tree. You can expect an audit coming soon. That’s how Jim Flaherty rolls.