It’s a bit rich for Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff to be talking about the credibility of election platforms. It has been more than a week since Ignatieff released his election platform. Here are the major uncosted items:
• HST funding for Quebec ($2.2 billion).
• New Champlain bridge ($1 billion according to Ignatieff).
• Arenas for professional sports (cost unknown. The Quebec City arena is estimated at $400 million. How many more arenas is he planning to build or fund?).
• Pharmacare (Estimated between $6.6 and $10.3 billion by a 2006 federal-provincial study).
• High speed rail ($18 billion for a Quebec City-Windsor route according to 1995 study. Obviously the cost would be much more in 2011 dollars).
Ignatieff has made at least $28 billion in un-costed spending promises in this campaign, even before the cost of his arena program is factored in. He has no credibility on the numbers or the economy.
I would like to know how much of this the Liberals expect to be paid for by the new re-packaged carbon tax in the Liberal platform (page 46) and why are they not talking about re-introducing of the green shift and cap-and-trade which will largely affect western provinces? Didn’t we vote against this in 2008?
And aren’t health care, education and day care provincial responsibilities? What are the provinces saying to all this, since they will be significantly affected?
Jan Webb
Metchosin