General

On re-announcements

Today, John Baird dragged the media out to Ottawa’s train station to boast about the $500k they had spent fixing up the bathrooms there. The money was originally announced in 2007. His colleague Peter Mackay is flying around bragging about military spending that has been announced once, twice, maybe even three times before.

The re-annnounce is an old game; it’s the political equivalent of Keynes’ multiplier effect, where one ounce of bullshit miraculously turns into a truckload.  But with billions of money still unspent from the 2007 budget, with actual problems facing the country, is this really the best use of senior ministers’ time? And if so, doesn’t that raise rather profound questions about what we need any of these guys for?

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