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Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau’s promise to spend billions on infrastructure across Canada is a huge tactical advantage to his candidates. Yes, the party’s taken a bit of a hit because Trudeau’s said a Liberal government would run deficits for several years after assuming power, but that money would fill up a great big piggybank into which all the Liberal candidates in the land can tap.
Ottawa Centre candidate Catherine McKenna wants to spend some of the money on a new central library and to hasten a new footbridge across the Rideau Canal near Lansdowne. Orléans candidate Andrew Leslie wants federal money to extend light rail east to Trim Road (the city’s current plan has it ending at Blair Road in 2018 and Place d’Orléans in about 2023), to link Hunt Club Road to Orléans’s south end as an alternative to Innes Road and Highway 174, and to tidy up Petrie Island. Each candidate has his or her own list.
They don’t quite promise that a Liberal government would do these things, mind you. They promise that as MPs in a Liberal government, they’d fight for them — though in fairness, individual candidates aren’t in a position to commit a hypothetical government to any particular project years down the line. Leaders do that, and then finance ministers find the money later.
But in this case, finding the money wouldn’t be that hard, given Trudeau’s pledge for that giant infrastructure fund. Trudeau has had to take a bit of a hit for his declared intention to run deficits for the first three years of his term as prime minister, but what he gets in exchange is candidates who can promise the moon and have a plausible explanation for how they’d pay to get it (they’d borrow! maybe not a great plan, but a clear one). Meanwhile the Conservatives are stuck with their own much smaller infrastructure program, which would still pay for stuff, just not as much. The New Democrats are in the middle, using the Tories’ plan as a template but promising to spend somewhat more than the Conservatives would.
dreevely@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/davidreevely
查看原文...
Ottawa Centre candidate Catherine McKenna wants to spend some of the money on a new central library and to hasten a new footbridge across the Rideau Canal near Lansdowne. Orléans candidate Andrew Leslie wants federal money to extend light rail east to Trim Road (the city’s current plan has it ending at Blair Road in 2018 and Place d’Orléans in about 2023), to link Hunt Club Road to Orléans’s south end as an alternative to Innes Road and Highway 174, and to tidy up Petrie Island. Each candidate has his or her own list.
They don’t quite promise that a Liberal government would do these things, mind you. They promise that as MPs in a Liberal government, they’d fight for them — though in fairness, individual candidates aren’t in a position to commit a hypothetical government to any particular project years down the line. Leaders do that, and then finance ministers find the money later.
But in this case, finding the money wouldn’t be that hard, given Trudeau’s pledge for that giant infrastructure fund. Trudeau has had to take a bit of a hit for his declared intention to run deficits for the first three years of his term as prime minister, but what he gets in exchange is candidates who can promise the moon and have a plausible explanation for how they’d pay to get it (they’d borrow! maybe not a great plan, but a clear one). Meanwhile the Conservatives are stuck with their own much smaller infrastructure program, which would still pay for stuff, just not as much. The New Democrats are in the middle, using the Tories’ plan as a template but promising to spend somewhat more than the Conservatives would.
dreevely@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/davidreevely
查看原文...
