If misleading advertising were an Olympic sport, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty would win gold.

His latest budget is a masterpiece of hype and obfuscation.

The 419-page document is entitled “creating jobs and opportunities.” But it does neither.

Yes, the federal Conservative government promises to spend a few million here and there to, among other things, encourage apprenticeships. This is all and good.

More at thestar.com

Budget highlights

Expensive defence-spending realities hidden

Just another day at the office for the Tories: Hébert

But it has also quietly cancelled a $200-million-a-year wage-subsidy program aimed at encouraging small businesses to hire more workers.

In his speech to the Commons Tuesday, Flaherty promised to “prohibit the pay-to-pay practice” whereby businesses levy extra fees on consumers who pay their bills by letter mail.

Yet, as a reading of the fine print demonstrates, this too isn’t exactly accurate.

True, banks are to be prevented from charging extra fees to credit card users who want printed monthly statements.

But telecom giants like Bell and Rogers remain free to do what they will (although the government says it is following Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission hearings into this matter “with great interest.”

So what is this budget about?

First and foremost, it is about cost-cutting. Last fall, the government announced a two-year spending freeze. That is expected to save Ottawa $1.7 billion over the period.

In this budget, the government is announcing an additional $3 billion in spending cuts over two years.

By making retired civil servants pay more for their health benefits, it hopes to cut a whopping $7.4 billion over six years.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

It is “saving” $3.1 billion in defence spending by simply postponing it.

On top of all of this, the government proposes to raise an additional $1.4 billion over two years by raising tobacco taxes.

(True to form, Flaherty doesn’t call this tax hike a tax hike. Instead, he says he is “restoring the effectiveness of the excise duty.”)

Second, the budget is about political positioning. All budgets are political. But Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have become masters of this art form.

The new spending tidbits are carefully aimed, either at demographic groups who might vote Conservative or at issues that have received a lot of media attention.

Thus, organizations that speak to elder abuse will get an extra $5 million a year. Parents who adopt are to receive a small tax break. So will diabetics who must use service dogs.

The government will spend an extra $10 million over the next two years on trails for snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles. It will also spend $25 million over five years on efforts aimed at reducing violence against aboriginal women.

The common element in all of these pledges is that, relative to $279 billion in annual federal government budget, they are cheap.

Third (and this is the real failing of the budget), it does virtually nothing to deal with the economic slump.

Canada’s official jobless rate remains stuck at roughly 7 per cent. The real jobless rate, including those who have given up looking for work, is roughly double that.

The government focuses on what it calls the skills mismatch. Yet Canada’s real problem is not that the unemployed lack skills. It is that there are too few jobs.

The budget boasts that Canada leads the G7 group of developed nations in job creation.

The figures show otherwise. Germany, with a 5.1 per cent unemployment rate, is doing better. So is Japan at 3.7 per cent. Even the United States is outdoing Canada.

A real budget would address the jobs issue head-on. This one, in spite of its extravagant title, does not.

Thomas Walkom’s column appears Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.

Read more about: