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No no no, no no, nooooo.. the reason we're in debt is because of the Mulrooney government's American-esque policies of lowering corporate taxes and passing the resulting budget deficits unto us, the citizens.
It's time to stop the corporate welfare state.
"One of the reasons why propaganda tries to get you to hate the government is because it's the one existing institution in which people can participate to some extent and constrain tyrannical unaccountable power [the corporation]." - Noam Chomsky, as quoted in Joel Bakan's The Corporation (pg. 152).
But to stay on topic, Paul Martin's financial policies have left the vital infrastructures of our country in a dangerous state. I'ld put the money back into social welfare programs - medicare, pharmacare (we should have had this program since the 1980s), student aid, welfare, and general infrastructure (roads, water, environmental cleanup).
I certainly agree paying down the debt is important, but not at the cost of our civil society, especially when it comes at costs paid by those least able - the poor (18.4% of all Canadian children live in poverty, according to the 2000 census, a figure I find personally abhorent - what kind of civil society allows this to happen?).
Devin
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