Good reason to ask why China
is big beneficiary of our aid
A sly-looking Liberal was hovering around, so I slipped into East Side Mario’s at Sunridge, one of my favourite sanctums, to ponder the Wall Street Journal, one of my favourite newspapers.
Using the adjective ‘sly-looking’ when describing a Liberal is not superfluous, for although all Liberals are indeed sly, many hide their hypocrisy under a thin veneer of bogus respectability.
Be ever alert.
One item in the Journal revealed the Paris Club of countries has forgiven $18 billion US of debt owed by Nigeria. That’s alarming, considering Nigeria is Africa’s largest oil-exporting nation. Why is an oil-exporting nation borrowing money, and why are western industrialized nations cancelling out the debts of this banana republic, with a history of military dictatorships?
Well, one might also ask why is it Communist China, with 1.2 million men and women in its armed forces, 700 missiles aimed at tiny democratic Taiwan, a space program that just sent two men into orbit, and a nation making multi-billion takeover bids for western companies, is the biggest recipient of Canada’s foreign aid program?
Ask Shipping Tycoon Paul Martin.
It doesn’t make sense.
Must be Liberals involved somewhere.
Of more refreshing news was an item about British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a very courageous and visionary man.
Blair intends to urge his counterparts in the European Union (EU) to impose a hefty dose of free market medicine to revive that region’s stalled economy and be better able to compete with the likes of the U.S. and China.
The economy of China is now roaring along with a growth rate of 9.4%, while the EU economies have a sluggish 2% rate.
Again, why is China at the top of Canada’s foreign aid list?
Blair believes EU countries must look at overhauling their social welfare programs and at the thorny question of agricultural subsidies to get the fat and sloth out of the system.
The French want to keep their farm subsidies—and both the French and the Germans want to keep their cradle-to-grave mollycoddling social welfare systems.
Britain’s prime minister disagrees.
He sees further economic stagnation unless the EU countries face reality.
Long holidays, lots of featherbedding, and lavish government handouts are what the French and Germans like.
Canada’s New Democratic Leader Jack Layton obviously isn’t listening to his fellow-socialist buddy in Britain.
For it was only a few months ago that Layton chiseled $4.6 billion out of Martin—and we taxpayers—for more social spending.
Yet, let’s recall when Blair made a speech to the Canadian House of Commons, he received a standing ovation from members of all political parties, except NDP MPs.
They felt Blair had betrayed socialism.
That Blair’s forward-thinking Labour party has won three straight majority governments, while Canada’s NDP can’t even muster 20 MPs, should have given Layton’s pals a hint it is they, not Blair, who are on the wrong track.
Coupled with Martin’s handouts to Layton, he also, at the behest of Layton, stalled the equivalent in tax cuts for business and industry, which were meant to spur the economy.
Liberal Canada is headed off in the wrong direction.
Incidentally, in Quebec, a wide-ranging group of prominent individuals, including Bloc Quebecois founder and former premier Lucien Bouchard, has just issued a report saying that province had better wake up and gets its economy and fiscal house in order.
Like their continental counterparts, Quebecers like the easy life rather than work, and social programs have made Quebec’s taxes and its deficit soar.
Bouchard and compatriots say this can’t go on.
Perhaps they have been reading what Blair says, and not what Layton and his apparent acolyte, Martin, say and do.
Where is Martin amidst these scenarios.
Maybe he is spending too much time worrying about the current state of his family business, Canada Steamship Lines.
Or could be he’s pondering what more he has to do to buy off Layton’s cynical support.
But for sure, he’s not showing the leadership Blair is.
Or even of Bouchard and his concerned colleagues.
And, obviously he’s not reading the Wall Street Journal.
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