Priorities

Received an email from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) today announcing the release of a new report on Canadian military spending. At $21.185 billion, our expenditure on defence in 2009-10 ranks us 13th highest in the world and sixth highest among NATO's 28 members on a per capita basis. For comparison purposes, the CCPA notes, the federal Department of the Environment received $1.064 billion. And I'll throw in this tidbit: in 2009-10 federal spending on arts, culture and heritage will total a humungous $535 million. Makes you think, doesn't it? Here's a link to the CCPA news release and report here.

And to top it all off, he did sing 'If I had a Rocket Launcher ...'

Bruce Cockburn recently went to visit his brother, who's a doctor with the Canadian Armed Forces expeditionary force in Afghanistan. He also entertained troops at a forward operating base there. (cbc.ca) The folk festival crowd at Rabble (rabble.ca) aren't impressed.

Guess that's one way to silence your critics ...

I just wonder how long it's going to be until the Republicans call on Blackwater, or XE as they're now known, to overthrow the government of he United States. And what would the Pentagon do in such a crisis?

Read and watch this (The Disaffected Liberal via Countdown with Keith Olberman). And put money on the U.S. going into a civil war within 10 years.

Flaherty Needs to Stop Channelling My Grandfather

I remember, as a child, my grandfather explaining to me how our nation got out of the Great Depression because of the Second World War. All that money invested in the war machine jump started our economy, he would argue, slamming a fist on the kitchen table. My grandfather had a fifth grade education and became a lovely man after the stroke, but years later after I did some reading on the subject, I discovered our recovery from that economic catastrophe was more complicated than simply "war breeds wealth." The ideas that developed out the New Deal had a lot more to do with our post-Crash recovery and our prolonged post-War prosperity than my grandfather ever gave them credit. (And, we can thank their post-Reagan erosion for the economic pickle we're in now.)

Well, judging by comments from Peter MacKay, (Leader Post) it would seem the Conservatives have been taking economic advice from my dear departed grandfather. Perhaps the PM has been getting messages from my grampy -- Mackenzie-King style -- through his cat.

Before a gathering of the "defense industry elite," MacKay was proudly declaring today that the recession will not slow military spending. In fact, according to the Post article, he claims, "the Canadian economy as a whole will be buoyed by the sustainable economic benefits that accrue through domestic and global opportunities in and beyond defence and security."

Personally, I find it ominous when a government links the word "sustainable" with anything to do with the military.