Liberal debt hole gets $3.6 billion deeper

A Stéphane Dion Liberal scheme for overhauling savings plans for education would cost $3.6 billion over four years and help plunge Canada at least $66.2 billion deeper into debt, the Conservative Party revealed today.

“After months of abstentions and failing to show up for votes, the Liberals finally found a budgetary item they could stand up for,” said Conservative MP Peter Van Loan. “Unfortunately, this spurious back-of-the-envelope spending promise carries with it a $3.6 billion price tag. Even with this cost, the Liberals still never even bothered to submit this plan in their pre-budget submission.”

The Conservative Party has released a costing report that documents all of the Liberal Party’s major spending commitments since the last federal election. Stéphane Dion’s latest spending commitment brings the total amount of promised Liberal spending to more than $102 billion.

“Stéphane Dion still refuses to come clean with a costing of his own plan,” said Mr. Van Loan. “He knows his promises don’t add up. That’s why he has started priming the electorate with language on something called ‘tax shifts’.”

“When politicians without priorities like Stéphane Dion talk about ‘tax shifts’, the taxes will be shifting in only one direction – up,” Mr. Van Loan concluded. “The onus is on Stéphane Dion to stop being so shifty when it comes to explaining which taxes he is going to hike to pay for over $100 billion in new spending. His disregard for the consequences of his own overspending is more evidence that he is not a leader and not worth the risk.”

Stéphane Dion. Not a leader. Not worth the risk.