How about starting with the elimination of the per vote subsidy of political parties. Not much money in the big picture, but I think in the end the spending savings will come from a lot of little stuff.

How about starting with the elimination of the per vote subsidy of political parties. Not much money in the big picture, but I think in the end the spending savings will come from a lot of little stuff.

How about starting with the elimination of the per vote subsidy of political parties. Not much money in the big picture, but I think in the end the spending savings will come from a lot of little stuff.

Gun Registry .

How about the GG's costs? Gun Registery.Tax-free perks to politico's.How about just cutting the size of the damn government itself??????

The Conservative votin', freeloadin' farmer subsidy, of course.

Arts funding.

That way Quebec separates and Canada can keep its money.

lance, I can't believe you are serious. Scratch the military from your list, Okay?

Pull Canada out of the UN!
Stop aid to the 3d world.
Privatize education.
Privatize healthcare.
Privatize the crown corporations.
Stop reissuing the IDs every 5 years, do it every 15-20 years.
Strip religions of tax exempt status, same as I have to pay GST whey buying from Goodwill store.

I can go on for hours, but this is the most costly list.

The hypocritical, Conservative, War On (some) Drugs.

The (sucking up to Uncle Sam) MISSION.

Strip religions of tax exempt status

Here, here.

The 600 to 800 MILLION we the taxpayers give to the CBC every year should be cut to ZERO

See Chrysler , for hints .

It is not a good time to cut military spending.

CBC
Global warming nonsense (get out of Kyoto)
Gun registry
funding for leftard groups
Section 13(1)

Index MP's entitlements accordingly to the markets they keep buggering around with . Can't remember where I saw it today , but " huge financial gains always seem to stay privatized , whereas huge financial losses always seem to be socialized ....". Feel our pain entitled ones , it's our dime anyways .

Privatize Healthcare
Privatize Education
Stop Funding the CBC
Stop Funding the Arts
Stop giving money to the Natives
Stop Funding the Museums
Get rid of Gun registry
Stop equalization payments
Eliminate all charity status for ALL religious orgs
Privatize the military
Privatize the police
Stop all Corporate Hand outs
Stop bailing out the banks and Stock Markets

And give me the tax cut I deserve.

No more subsidies for Bombardier
Close down or privatize the BDC
No more Court Challenges Program
Dump the Publications Assistance Program
Disband Heritage Canada
Take all money wasted on useless Aboriginal programs and shift it to the military.

Forgot to add...

Canada only needs one official language. Eliminating French, our linguistic vestigial appendage, will save a tonne of dosh. Will also be good for the environment as we won't have to print everything in French as well and waste all that extra energy and paper (something even you lefties can get behind, nie?).

Nothing wrong with a small deficit considering the Federal budget is just over $200 Billion.

Everybody get upset about deficits and Canadian GHGs without getting the numbers and putting things in proportion.

Most everybody falls back into their doctrinaire feeeelings and spout great proclamations verging on ad hominem. I guess 'numbers' are too confusing unless it's only adding or subtracting .. but multiplying and dividing becomes too complex and confusing.

Stop all funding of multiculturalism
Stop all Government Regulatory Agency, food inspections, regulating the banks, environmental regulation, etc,...
Stop all subsidies to farmers
Stop all subsidies to Political Parties
Get rid of the Government
Stop building schools with tax dollars
Stop funding Universities
Stop all Government Grants
Stop aiding 3rd world crap holes
Sell off all Crown Corps
Sell off all Government assets
Stop holding election (300 million a shot is way to much)
Privatize the Prison System (let the crooks feed themselves)

Observant,

Spoken like a true Liebral Statist

How about keeping the asspiles of money we send to corrupt dictatorships in "aid" every year?

and get rid of the damn Wheat Board as well.

cut equalization to newfoundland till Danny Whine for Wine Williams comes and begs for the money, naked, prostrate and with a large dill pickle inserted in his obvious reverse mouth.

danny whine for whine . on the outside looking in.

and to Quebec mange merde.

Anywhere Stephen Harper cuts the budget will (likely) either offend his Conservative base or be turned into a scandal by the Media, Liberals, Block and NDP (or both).

Now, one thing I wonder is how big of a risk a there is of a Deficit and how long lived it would really be.

I could be wrong, but in the very near future the combination of the return of credit, the risk (reality) of high inflation, and the poor performance of conventional investments like stocks will push more and more investors back into the commodities markets which will return resource revenues to what we saw earlier this year.

Yup, legalize marijuana. The Fraser Institute estimates the Canadian government could generate $2 billion annually through such a move... actually, that money is already being generated, it's just not going to the government, who instead is spending money to fight the damn stuff with much the same effect as during the prohibition of alcohol.

Legalize it, license small farmers to grow it, tax it, let the potheads smoke themselves into oblivion, and privatize health-care so I don't have to subsidize anybodies bad habit(s).

Kill the gun registry
End bilingualism
Start making natives pay their own way
Stop subsidies to Quebec
Setup a government department whose only purpose will be to shutdown other government departments that have outlived their usefullness (except for itself).
Privatize medicine.

Medicare is by far the largest budget item for most provinces and, even though I make a damn good living off it, I'd love to see it terminated. Really good physicians could then charge what they're worth instead of being paid the same as the guy who just barely scraped through his exams. I very much doubt that government would do this but I can dream.

Can't believe I forgot about decriminalizing cannabis (thanks for bringing this up Anonymous Coward). Right now the BC marijuana industry is considerably larger than the BC forest industry and all other agriculture combined. By making it legal BC would also see a huge increase in the number of tourists coming in to imbibe of what is probably the highest quality cannabis on the planet.

Yawn......
Dont any of you remember last spring when the same scenario happened?
See what the numbers are at the end of the quarter, or year.

How about just cutting the size of the damn government itself?

Might work, but then we'd be saddled with a bunch of people (hundreds of thousands!) needing to find work in the real world.

Being formerly coddled, unionized and accustomed to pushing paper, politics and job-preservation tactics, this might be the final ruination of our economy.

Maybe Swift's Modest Proposal is a solution; after all, aging improves the taste.

. "Really good physicians could then charge what they're worth instead of being paid the same as the guy who just barely scraped through his exams"

I didn't know there was a correlation between "grades" and competency in a profession. I assume you are a physician and I wonder if you have a display in your waiting room showing your standing in your class. I also assume you must have been first. After all if your not first, second is the first looser.

Horny Toad

Hey Manny, check the calender.

This is October.

Food Freedom Day in Canada was last Feb 04, 2008.

Food Freedom Day is defined as the day a person has made enough money to buy enough food for the whole year.

So who exactly is getting the biggest food subsidies?

Oh well, its better to prove you are totally out to lunch than to just have everybody think it.

1) Gun registry: and run in forensic accountants.
2) HRC's/after cops raid it.
3) Wheat Board / Forensic accountants
4) CBC lock the doors, sell it off

These 4 should be cut at the same time and as quickly as possible, first.

Cut native spending by 1 billion each year for ten years or till gone.
One Law For All

Cut all multiculturalism spending anything hyphanated Canadian

Free federal licences, permits,etc online.

I really like loki's Bill "setup government department whose only purpose will be to shutdown other government departments that have outlived their usefullness (except for itself)."
Preston Manning can be "Minister Of" with Mart Laar as special consultant.

"When Mart Laar began his second term as prime minister of Estonia in 1999, the country was in the midst of a fiscal crisis. The collapse of Russia's economy the year before had left Estonia's stock market reeling, and the government was struggling to fund the benefits promised by Soviet-era social programs.

Laar realized that the only way for Estonia to weather the crisis was to finally leave behind the legacy of its communist past. He announced deep cuts to paternalistic state welfare pro"
http://www.cato.org/special/friedman/laar/

The government has legislated a paydown on the debt. All this talk of a deficit, how does the debt payment factor in? Which is bigger, the paydown or the deficit?

Legalize marijuana? If we were the only country in the world it might work. Canada signed a narcotics control world convention agreement many years ago and to officially abrogate that would be a disaster.
Any savings would be more than offset by the fact that our border with the USA would immediately slam shut and all our economic activity would grind to a halt. something like 75-80% of our economic activity is across the US border. About the only thing that would be left for us to do would be to sit around and toke up as there would be no jobs left.

mid island mike

Horny Toad: academic standing in medical school has a high correlation with competency in medicine but not with how satisfied patients are with a doctor. I wasn't in the top of my class but usually the top 1/3.

Medicine is the only profession where a physician just out of residency is paid exactly the same as a physician with 20-30 years of clinical experience. In any other profession people are paid on the basis of their demonstrated competence in their field. In private medicine, plastic surgeons, for example, have at least a 10-fold difference in how much they will charge for various procedures. I've seen breast implants done by cut-rate surgeons and some of the best and the difference was striking.

Right now the only way for a GP to increase their income is to push more patients through/day and find other ways of making the practice more efficient. This results in doctors that work in city walkin clinics providing inferior medical services making 2-3 times more than physicians who spend the time required to workup a patients medical problem. I can't wait for socialized medicine to end in this country.

Double or triple MP salaries, this will hopefully eliminate loser single issue candidates and make room for people who are smarter and can do something. Limit MP's to two terms and cut the pension.
Elect the Senate or some form of regional house.
Kill the gun registry.
Close CBC TV - keep radio, but don't let CBC decide what or who to keep. Sell TV assets.
Limit CRTC to spectrum issues - not content.
Shut down all HRC's.
Cancel Multi-cult spending.
Weed arts, public works, etc funding.
Contract out what can be

On and on....

The Conservatives created it, the Conservatives must kill it. The CBC must die.

lots of good ideas.piperpaul's is best. for all you athiests, without the ten commandents we have no morality. but what the heck. governments will never cut spending because we are firmly attached to the government teat and will be so forever. there is nothing in this country that does not receive money from the public purse at some point. as for any cuts in government spending any announced cuts are only cuts in proposed increases not an actual cut from the current cost.

Start making natives pay their own way
loki at October 25, 2008 12:17 AM

Cut native spending by 1 billion each year for ten years or till gone.
One Law For All
richfisher at October 25, 2008 1:38 AM

Thanks for pointing out my priority. Killing the Indian affairs dept. would guarantee a balanced budget. however, my plan is not to cut it. It is to be distributed at 1 bill/yr for every registered native (not just the band chiefs) sans the Indian affair buracrats. Finacial planing classes would be a must to cash said cheque. after 10 yrs no more funds and no more guilt. Lets see the libs bring that back. ( I'm ok with a one time bulk payment also. after that, no more Dept.Of Indian Affairs}

This is not racist! Allowing that dept. to exist in its present form is.

Axing the CBC is the bonus round

Correction!!
It is to be distributed at 1 bill/yr for ALL registered natives, distributed equally...

NOT I bill each!
Sorry bout that one

"This is not racist!"

Actually, technically, giving money to people based on their race is racist.

Further, where did you come up with the $1,000,000,000 figure? Your ass, I assume.

"Posted by: loki at October 25, 2008 2:22 AM"

Whiner!

By the way, I've been having this pain, and can you tell me what you think is causing it?

Good idea, manny: nix the afghan mission. After all, there are no terrorists or threats in afghanistan, eh? No worries to our security. Can we then sign you up to be travelling wherever the next 9/11 takes place? Likely within (2) years of the obammessiah's inaugaration.

Back under your bridge, manny.

As for the rest of you who want to see religions stripped of their charitable status, be sure to talk to all the support groups, charities and outreaches that are supported by organized religions, because they'll feel the worst brunt of your misplaced anger.

Or hadn't you thought of that?

mhb23re
at gmail d0t calm

Oops, I guess my comment got hung up because I put a link in there.

Anyhooo. Apparently Ujhal won by 22 votes after the judge decided NOT TO OPEN ALL THE BALLOT BOXES!!!

Guess there is more than one way to lose a majority

You can check it out over at Joanne's at Blue Like You to which I give a H/T to Karol via Joanne.

Check out Karol's link in the post prior to the most recent to read about the connections between the Judge and the Liberal party.

No matter what you cut, you will offend someone. So any political party has to play that game carefully. It might gain some votes from one group while alienating another. Timing is important. I would start with the gun registry--except that the money has already been wasted and we can't get it back. Is anything salvageable out of the colossal mess and what would it cost to either dismantle it or turn it into something useful? (You never get out of these things free.) It would be a good time to go back to the Auditor-General's reports. Start there. One of the areas mentioned was the many unaccounted dollars that go into aboriginal programs--that somehow never seem to make their way towards helping the people themselves.

Education? Whenever education budgets are increased, I have seen that money used to expand services that are not properly the purview of the educational system (school lunches, sports facilities improvements etc.) Often, the offices of the Director absorb a lot of cash in make-overs. More directors are hired. Computer programs for keeping track of attendance and marks--usually very expensive and poorly designed--these absorb huge dollars.

Buried deader than PET >>>> "‘the War in Iraq bankrupted America’."
I'm entitled to my entitlement$.
The State is Our Enemy.
...-

"No way out

The Claremont Institute has a long and informative history of the central issue of in American politics: the size and scope of government. The dry recitation of facts is inexorable. Although it is fashionable to depict politics as a war between welfare state liberals and small government conservatives “the welfare state battle between liberals and conservatives has been as evenly matched as the one at Little Big Horn between Sitting Bull and Custer. Real, per capita federal spending on Human Resources was 15 times greater in 2007 than in 1940.” Human Resources spending is an OMB term for

* Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services
* Health (excluding Medicare)
* Medicare
* Income Security (excluding Social Security)
* Social Security
* Veterans’ Benefits and Services

Author William Voegeli’s tables should hammer the final nails into the coffin of the charge that ‘the War in Iraq bankrupted America’. Human Resources, not National Defense, has been top dog by a long chalk for decades. And it will get bigger still. Consider this chart."
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2008/10/25/no-way-out/

Scratch the museums from your lists, or in 50 years no one will remember what Brown Bess was.

Welcome to the center, Mr. Harper.

Keep the right happy by cutting taxes.

Keep the left happy by continuing to provide services.

Screw over everybody so that you can stay in power for another 4 years. Every party does it. Every party will continue doing it.

If its about free market principles, Farm subsidies should be the first to go, right up there alongside arts funding.

I am sick and tired of farmers relying on some passe rustic imagery to justify their existence in an industrial/service-based economy. If the goods you produce don't bring enough money in, switch careers.

I am sick and tired of artists relying on some new age eclectic imagery to justify their existence in an industrial/service-based economy. If the goods you produce don't bring enough money in, switch careers.

These are the first two that need to go, but the list goes on. Do we really need a military? Them Americans arent going to let anyone touch us regardless of whether we have one or not. They don't want a foreign power to use Canada as a landing and staging point. We can give them cheap oil in return.

Harper can start further cutting of the special tax free status of various groups and individuals currently registered as "Charities" for which we pay.

Many of these NGOs are nothing more than political and religious lobby groups.

The CJC, BB and FOSW along with the CIC as well as the Supreme Islamic Council come to mind.

Cut Quebec

Get rid of government pensions. Pay the bums a reasonable salary and they can fund their own RRSP's, just like we do, instead of us first paying them, then paying their pensions before we pay for our own.

Sorry Lance. You blew it big time when you put military on your list.

"It's time to be conservative again."

Paging Mr.Harper...

I'm with you, mhb. Those who wish religious institutions to lose their tax exempt status have no idea how much they good they do in their communities—and much more humanely and efficiently than any government agency could.

E.g., My husband and I have been involved in a program which provides a meal a week for about 150 people who, in general, live on the street or in very straightened circumstances. Many of us provide a lot of food—we get a receipt for this donation—while, for the considerable food preparation and distribution time, there is, of course, no receipt. At these dinners, where the clients are treated with much courtesy and care, there is a real community feeling. At Thanksgiving, over 300 people were served a turkey dinner: as most of the cost—the human labour, as well as the overhead of the location—was volunteered, this enterprise was both more personal and much more efficient than anything a government agency could provide.

You anti-religious types only seem to see the glass as half full. Beware what you wish for: if religious institutions lose their tax exempt status, you’ll see a myriad of humane and important services disappear.

Ladies and gentlemen, how about some -practical- suggestions?

There is no department of anything, anywhere, that can't soak up a 5% budget cut. They lay off a body, they hold back on new replacements for existing functional equipment, maybe re-think some expansion plans.

A 5% reduction in the total operating budget of the Canadian government as a whole would more than keep us out of deficit, particularly if applied to include TRANSFER PAYMENTS. Dalton McSquinty should get a 10% cut, just to remind the idiots at Queen's Park whose money they are spending.

One should not look upon this crisis as a pure disaster. What we as Conservatives are presented with here is a perfect excuse to review and trim the entire system of regulation and oversight which is strangling this country.

Major example, workplace health and safety regulations. Many regulations are good and necessary, many are idiotic and counterproductive. Cleaning meat slicers properly is good, handicapped accessible washrooms in firehalls is perhaps not so good.

A review of regs with the focus being on reducing the cost of compliance AND the cost of enforcement could do two things. It could massively reduce the invasion of private property and private enterprise by government apparatchiks, and it could improve workplace safety by only regulating things which can be enforced.

Another fruitful area for cuts, environmental protection. Focus on enforcement of regs on things which are actually harmful, maybe not so much time spent harassing farmers about cutting the weeds in their ditches.

In the trimming of these agencies the most important part is who gets fired. This is the political part where you jettison the socialist empire builders and put in conservative empire shrinkers. Give them a monetary incentive bonus for cost reduction.

As for the military, I'd say they need a lot more soldiers and a lot fewer officers and QM types. Fire half the officers over the rank of Captain, streamline support so it doesn't take 20 QM guys 10 of whom are majors, to keep one guy in the field. Spend the money on stuff that goes bang for a change, and more guys to use it on the enemy.

If you make the cost of things an issue, its amazing how much cheaper things can become.

"The line for me is that at no time, ever, should a gov't spend more than it takes in. "

Today I give you eighteen dollars. Tomorrow I give you seventeen dollars. The next day, I take two dollars. How many dollars do you have?

Running a one or two dollar billion deficit is suboptimal but palatable when one has paid down thirty five billion in debt in the preceding two years. What is more libertarian than freeing the people from the surly bonds of compound interest?

You say the GST cut - five percent of government revenues and twelve billion dollars - isn't a means to reduce taxpayer burden. Respectfully, were you high when you wrote that? Tax cuts don't come much bigger than that in real life.

Spending has skyrocketed because "libertarians" (does anyone in Canada describe themselves as "authoritarian"?) are averse to taking on special interest groups. Harper has to increase spending rapidly because we are gaining population rapidly - over a million arrivals since Harper came to power, 3% of our population, at a cost of tens of billions to the taxpayer (Source: Fraser Institute). I don't think it's very libertarian to give that a wink and a nod; do you?

Libertarian needs to mean more than some guy who wants to download free Hollywood movies while tacitly approving every left wing radical cause that has appeared since 1964.

We live in a country where the government that just increased spending on arts was repeatedly attacked for *cutting* spending to arts, and where the government that just increased transfer payments to the have-not provinces was attacked for *cutting* transfer payments, and where "are Conservatives barbarians?" is considered a reasonable question for a nationally televised debate. Black isn't white in Canada, it's fish.

To answer your question, I'd gut the hell out of the public service and suspend gender and race quota hiring which is directly responsible for the waste of billions of dollars on such failures as the gun registry. Two billion bucks to develop a web app a script kiddie could write in a week.

If I could. Problem is, Canada is signatory to all kinds of international treaties on these matters, not to mention our own courts and the special interest groups themselves.

Considering the "new normal", Harper has been outstanding from a fiscal perspective. Did you see the Conservatives' election "platform"? Sixty million - that's "million", with an "m" - in new spending on a few token nanopolicies. THAT is libertarian, baby, and possibly the most libertarian federal election platform in Canadian history. I think Harper is more minimalist than incrementalist, and under the circumstances a lack of policy - "policy" being a press release promising to spend a minimum of a billion taxpayer dollars, in the Canadian vernacular - is the best we can hope for.

loki

"""""" can't wait for socialized medicine to end in this country."""""

amen!!!!!!

"Time to bury the gun registry"

"What started as a program said to cost $119 million, is now estimated to cost about $20 billion,"
http://tinyurl.com/58ztpo (winsun)

20 Billion$ would buy X MRIs?

I'd cut spending money in Ontario, stop trying to keep jobs in Ontario that are not going to last in Ontario. ie. the auto sector.

But what I really can not understand is why, D. McQuinty can forecast for months that Ontario is going to be a have-not province. Then two days after they talk about a 500 million deficit they have a solution to the problem.

Is it just me or should the solution not have happened before the deficit?

I think he will announce massive spending cuts over the next while...

It's probably been the plan all along.

After all, it's pretty hard to announce spending cuts when you're running 10+ billion dollar surpluses.

So, he had to cut taxes first.

"There is no department of anything, anywhere, that can't soak up a 5% budget cut. They lay off a body, they hold back on new replacements for existing functional equipment, maybe re-think some expansion plans."

This has already been happening for the last four years, federally (longer in some departments, decades in others). 5-10% per annum is the norm, not the exception. As for equipment, most departments are so far behind the technological 8-ball, its downright primordial. Existing professional and semi-professional staff are making 10-25% less than their counterparts in private sector or provincial services, and are actually having difficulty making ends meet in large metropolitan areas.

"A review of regs with the focus being on reducing the cost of compliance AND the cost of enforcement could do two things. It could massively reduce the invasion of private property and private enterprise by government apparatchiks, and it could improve workplace safety by only regulating things which can be enforced."

This statement is mostly nonsense. In fact, the cost of compliance and enforcement is skyrocketing due to the amount, even as the government has massively reduced compliance and enforcement budgets.

The statement is based on the truly dumb assumption that in the absence of compliance and enforcement, people would actually act in the best interests of themselves and their neighbours. Incredibly naive - doesn't happen, won't happen. Canadians are as predatory as any middle eastern terrorists. In the absence of government regulatory and compliance regimes over important issues, Canada would make China look like the poster child for public safety.

The 1850's business model is only great when you own the business. People don't seem to get that in any fully freewheeling economy they're more likely to be the serf than the overlord, or shot dead trying to steal supper.

$20 billion?

What is this? A game of bullshit poker.

Much as I despise the gun registry, I can't believe the 20 billion figure.

Am I wrong?

Sorry, need to correct this line - left a bit out:

"... In fact, the cost of compliance and enforcement is skyrocketing due to the amount on non-compliance and lack of enforcement, as the government has massively reduced compliance and enforcement budgets."

OLD WHITEY

"""" for all you athiests, without the ten commandents we have no morality """""

didn't the comic book, the BIBLE preach something about judging, isn't the good lord the only one who should do so????

you kno the one about glASS houses and stone throwing!!!!

Legacy Moralist at 11:19

"Today I give you eighteen dollars. Tomorrow I give you seventeen dollars. The next day, I take two dollars."

This is what we are talking about here, some conservatives are already confused by being in Ottawa. You don't give me any money, neither the government, unless you are pushing far left ideas. Anyway, as long as Harper won't have guts to address HRC,CBC, Medicare, please don't spin definitions of "libertarian'.

We give 50 million a year to China STILL for foreign aid.

We could stop and give me 1/2 that.

I have a feeling cutting that wouldn't put us into recession either.

Send the Vatican and other churches the 7 billion dollar bill for the Residential School claims as held in Blackwater v. Plint, [2005]3 S.C.R. 3, 2005 SCC ("Second, the power of the government to enter into agreements with religious organizations for the care and education of Indian children suggests that the duty is eminently delegable and was contracted out of by the government. Arguments based on general obligations outside the strict language of the statute and the residential school setting, such as Parliament’s control over definition and registration of Indians and jurisdiction over reserves, are not persuasive."). The previous Liberal government by agreed to have the not responsible taxpayers pay the damages based on attendance.

Skip, you know as well as I do that companies and individuals can't fully comply with all regulations, there are too many. Not that they can't comply and stay in business, they can't do it -at all-.

I'm not saying there should be no regulation. I'm saying what is important should be regulated and what is not shouldn't be.

Listeria in meat packing plants is escaping notice because the company is paying attention to its affirmative action hiring plan and trans gendered sensitivity training courses. They are spending money on handicapped accessible everything in a building where there are not and never will be any people in wheel chairs, instead of focusing on keeping the meat safe. Likewise inspectors are checking for bathroom fixture compliance and skipping the meat slicer room. Its idiotic.

You don't think Canada could shave a couple hundred billion off costs by applying actual common sense to regulations and eliminating 40 years of political correctness? You think a government that consumes on the order of HALF Canada's gross domestic product can't go on a diet? You don't think the City of Toronto alone could come up with a billion bucks in budget cuts if they had to?

By the way. Do you think "greed" (or the profit motive as it is also known) was well rewarded in this Maple Leaf Foods fiasco? Check Maple Leaf's stock price for the right answer.

Phantom, I agree with you about cutting assinine regulations. Here in BC the Worthless Commie Bastards (WCB) not being satisfied in making us pay for gas before pumping have recently mandated that hospitals and doctors offices can only use "safety" syringe needles and scalpels. These are very cumbersome devices which are likely to result in more injuries as they require people to change how they have been working for decades. I've never jabbed myself with a needle after giving an injection and figure I've probably given about 25000 injections in the last 15 years. I've also never shot myself in 40+ years of shooting (or even come close to doing so) and it just takes the right mindset when one is working around things which can hurt you. The stupid are going to hurt themselves regardless of how many regulations are in place.

Anything my office produces is considered "medical waste" and requires "special handling" (ie it costs a lot more to get rid of). It's an offence to dispose of biologic material in regular garbage but HIV+ women aren't being asked to dispose of their used tampons in special medical waste containers. Throwing expired drugs into office garbage is an offence and it has never made sense to me why I can't toss a sealed bottle of expired antibiotic into the trash when I can give the same pills to a patient who will ingest them and pee out the antibiotic into the sewer system.

I'm sure everyone who reads SDA can come up with their own examples of regulations which are non-sensical and a prime target for government cuts should be the people who write these regulations. Putting this group on individuals on welfare is likely far cheaper than letting them continue to create an endless number of more and more restrictive regulations.

I always laugh when I hear farmers talk about Food Freedom Day coming in at February 4th every year - as if it's a bad thing for the country or evidence that we "underpay" our farmers. Its like these people would prefer that we go back to the egyptian times and work until December 15th every year to pay for food.

Fact: We subsidize farmers to the tune of $5 billion every single year. Thats $5 billion for a population of approximately 160,000...which works out to $31,250 per farm or more per capita than natives. Of course, the Food Freedom Day calculation never includes what the evil customers pay to subsidize the growers.

Fact: The average farmer's net equity is over $940,000. Contrary to popular belief, this equity figure is being driven down by large corporations who are debt financing and driven up by the smaller farms with one to two thousand acres. So we're paying billions to subsidize millionaires.

Sources: Public Accounts, 2006 Farm Financial Survey

So-called food freedom day is a ludicrous bit of propaganda that uses aggregate figures to come up with some fictitious date that has absolutely no reflection in reality. It is a demonstration of how figures can lie and liars can figure. It's sole purpose is for free-loaders to justify their faces being perpetually in the public trough.
The truth is, for the vast majority of income earners, there is no cheap food policy, nor is food cheap.
Of course, food freedom day is a riff on the Fraser Institute's equally inane Tax Freedom Day which uses the same nonsensical methodology. You all remember the Fraser Institute, famously on the public tit as a charitable write-off. Seems to be no end to Conservative hypocrisy. Now there's a good place to start cutting.

get rid of the gun registry, official bilingualism, and multi-cult, in addition to Lance's suggestions. Oh, and the subsidy for political parties - totally unnecessary.

loki how bout thou shalt not steal. this applies all to every person and gov dept in this country.

gym how bout thou shalt not steal. this applies all to every person and gov dept in this country.

Actually a responsible government should hold the line on spending. Entering into a recession is not the time to cut overall government spending, otherwise the cuts are a knee jerk reaction and a trigger for economic panic/depression. The deficit should be balanced over a period of years to help counteract normal variations in the boom/ bust cycle. However, now is always a good time to reallocate spending from wasteful to productive areas.
I like the above suggestion that regulations be simplified. It is the best suggestion for getting the best bang for OUR buck. For too long any government body could add just about any regulation without considering the impact. I would like to see any bureaucrat proposing a regulation having to present and defend it before a committee of affected citizens. Some would be a reality check and some would gain acceptance.

If we want to eliminate all farm subsidies in the interest of a true "free-market economy" then there exists the undeniable extension of this principle to the beloved Canadian Wheat Board. I am a farmer and I believe in a true "free-market economy" but if I am expected to pay the salaries of 500 employees who I do not believe provide me with any benefit then I guess a little bit of every one else's money in my pocket is okay too. Yeah, the CWB may be a government operation but it's not funded by all members taxed by the government. That money comes straight from my paychecks. Almost feels like paying union dues when I fervently disagree with the entire notion of unions.