It was actually painful to watch Employment Minister Pierre Poilievre stand in front of a Government of Canada backdrop and behind a Government of Canada podium — wearing a Conservative-branded golf shirt — as he announced the largest one-time payout to taxpayers in Canadian history Monday.

In case you missed it (and that barely seems possible, given how much time and energy the government has dedicated to promoting it), the federal government has increased the Universal Child Care Benefit for parents of children under six from $100 to $160 and created a new $60 stipend for parents of children between the ages of six and seventeen.

To add to the hype, the program commenced January 1 — but the government claimed it was incapable of processing the cheques at the time, so lump-sum, backdated cheques are arriving in parents’ mailboxes this week. Generally, I don’t dismiss the bureaucracy’s general incompetence — but the fact that we are less than 100 days away from a general election may be a better explanation for these large, backdated payments.

There was a time when Conservatives would scoff at — or at least be embarrassed by — such huge expenditures, especially ones linked to the welfare state. But I truthfully can’t remember when that might have been. After seven consecutive deficit budgets, adding over $200 billion to the national debt — including the single largest deficit in Canadian history — it’s clear that this Conservative government is not too embarrassed to spend taxpayers’ dollars in large quantities.

You might think, however, that there would be some principled people remaining in the Conservative party who would see through all of this blatant, shameless self-promotion, on the eve of a national election when the Conservatives are trailing in the polls. Apparently, there aren’t.

Conservatives in this country used to stand for something — for small, limited government, for low taxes. This week’s spectacle showed that the Conservatives are no better as guardians of public money than any other party; worse, they have taken electioneering and electoral bribery to new and dangerous levels. Conservatives in this country used to stand for something — for small, limited government, for low taxes. This week’s spectacle showed that the Conservatives are no better as guardians of public money than any other party; worse, they have taken electioneering and electoral bribery to new and dangerous levels.

The cheques might appear large — $520 for children under six, $420 for children under 18. But this is not “Christmas in July” for parents. In the last omnibus budget bill, the government eliminated the Child Tax Credit. The new Universal Child Care Benefit is taxable income. So although you get to cash the cheque before the election, you’ll be taxed on it come April. With the elimination of the Child Tax Credit, a family earning $90,000 per year will only be able to keep an extra $7.50 per month after the tax clawback.

From a political and electoral perspective, of course, it matters not. The cheques get cashed before the election. The tax liability is not incurred until six and a half months after the government hopes to be re-elected.

Both Treasury Board guidelines and the Ethics Commission state it is inappropriate for a government official to blur the lines between government and partisan announcements. Mr. Poilievre apparently felt no shame. He was quick to point out that neither the Liberals nor the New Democrats support the UCCB — a half-truth at best and a not-so-subtle attempt to persuade an apparently gullible public that only the Conservatives can be trusted to protect families.

For the record, I am certainly not opposed to allowing Canadians to keep more of their own money. I do, however, question both the optics and the efficiency of this shameless delivery method.

It’s not new for governments to play politics with taxpayers’ money, but vote-buying in Canada has seldom seemed more brazen. Conservatives in this country used to stand for something — for small, limited government, for low taxes, for individual choice and individual responsibility for choices made. This week’s spectacle showed that the Conservatives are no better as guardians of public money than any other party; worse, they have taken electioneering and electoral bribery to new and dangerous levels.

In its nine years in office, this government has introduced voluminous tax credits, designed specifically to win votes from certain demographics. A true conservative would develop a simplified tax code and set a lower base tax for all Canadians.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in asking his MPs to shill for the event, called Monday a “historic day”. And for a Conservative government to hand out cheques totalling $3 billion is historic, I suppose, in the sense that it’s precedent-setting for the party to attempt to bribe taxpayers with $3 billion of their own money on the eve of an election. I can think of more appropriate adjectives.

It is time to stop pretending the Universal Child Care Benefit is about child care. It’s about the election. True conservatives are outraged (or at least embarrassed). Partisan Conservatives appear to be thrilled and self-satisfied.

And poor Pierre Poilievre appears to be oblivious of the fact that he has been reduced to the role of infomercial pitchman in a corporate golf shirt — albeit a stylish one.

Brent Rathgeber is MP for Edmonton-St. Albert. He resigned from the Conservative caucus in 2013 due to what he describes as the Harper government’s “lack of commitment to transparency and open government”. He now sits as an Independent and is running for re-election this fall.

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