15 January 2006

Unfit to govern - Connies didn't give him everything to assess: economist

This should give everyone pause for thought:

OTTAWA (CP) - A prominent economist commissioned by the Conservatives to assess the financial soundness of their election platform says major items were omitted from the version he was given.

Paul Darby, deputy chief economist of the Conference Board of Canada, originally concluded that Stephen Harper's Conservative platform 'is affordable in each fiscal year from 2005-2006 through 2010-2011.'
Read a little further in the Canadian Press article, available from canoe.ca and you find this statement from the guy who originally endorse the Connie platform as fiscally sound:

"Those are two items that are not in what I was presented to analyze," he said. "I don't think, frankly, that those are in the platform, they're just under discussion.

"Those items were not costed, which leads me to believe that they're something that they're having under consideration that they're not committed to." [Emphasis added]