Ottawa

The quiet cuts

The Harper government’s budget cuts are apparently inspiring an existential crisis in and around the Conservatives.

“We need to get a set of balls and convince people that efficiencies mean lower taxes and better services. It’s the last bastion and we have to do it early in our majority,” said one senior Conservative. He said that influential figures in the Prime Minister’s Office, such as Mr. Wright, are more cautious and worried that talk of cuts will backfire with voters … 

Stephen Taylor, a director at the National Citizens Coalition (the organization once headed up by Stephen Harper) said that the government has been sheepish about any cuts that it has made. “They’re not putting them in the front window and saying ‘we’re proud of that.’ That’s too bad to me,” he said. The goal of the NCC, he said, is to change the culture of Canada so that news like the $8-billion in spending cut last year is heralded by governments, not hushed up.

See previously: The quiet cuts

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