Big spending and my favourite cuddly bears

By Andrew Hastings

I was sitting at home this evening watching TV and I saw one of my favorite commercials.

The cute cuddly Charmin bears were talking about the cut-backs their family could make to help them deal with the tough times. I thought to myself, that if the Charmin bears are thinking up ideas maybe we should look at what our government and its various think tanks have in store for us.

I wonder if papa bear would agree with our government spending 50% more this year on military budgets? I wonder if mamma bear would agree to spend $10-15 billion on a new “tough on crime bill”? What would baby bear think as well when he found out that funding these various projects would come with detriment to his education? With the recent announcement of this year’s federal budget, another alarming trend in conservative spending has come up. With so many campaign promises unfulfilled, the government is using its slim majority to try to pass a budget that will spend billions of dollars on programs that do nothing to help the masses.

With so many prominent people speaking out against these spending programs, it boggles the mind that the conservatives are turning a deaf ear. With every social program under the sun being slashed; we should question if the best response is to build billions of dollars worth of new prisons and to fund a military that’s does little to affect our national security. Maybe if we had a Prime Minister that didn’t ally himself with two of the most hated nations on the planet, Israel and the United States, our national security would be in better shape. With all the other scandals recently coming to light, I hope this stands as a lesson to the voters of this nation of what a neo-conservative government is all about. We need to demand a change in our political landscape. It’s time to go back to a non-interventionist policy on foreign affairs and to stop this nonsense of aiding in regime change all over the world.

Instead of building prisons and jets to fill the coffers of a sick elite, it’s time we demand a system that will benefit us all.  I will end this column with the words of another because I sure cannot say it better myself. “Ain’t it funny how the factory doors close, round the time that the school doors close, round the time that the doors of the jail cells open up to greet you like the reaper”- Zack de la Rocha