Pinocchio Paul

It's hard for a regular person to tell two lies in one sentence, but Paul Martin -- drawing on the experience of his years of 'public service' -- managed to lay down two whoppers in one breath. Speaking on the topic of his 1995 cuts in health care transfer payments, he said:

The fact is that we had to do that, and I don't back down from that one bit. If we had not taken the action that we did in 1995, we would be Argentina today.

The first lie is that Canada could have had a economic collapse similar to the one that recently devastated Argentina. His implication being that Argentina's troubles were caused by out-of-control social spending. That may be the common perception, but Martin, as Canada'a Finance Minister during Argentina's meltdown, must know it's not true. Argentina's problems were due to an unsustainable peg of the peso to the American dollar, and the borrowing that was necessary to support it. A ruthless slashing of government entitlements would have, if anything, only delayed the inevitable.

Martin's other lie is that he actually cut heath care spending. In reality, all he did was change the level of government that was paying the bills. The hard choices of what to do were faced by the provincial governments. Some borrowed to make up the difference, while others made difficult cuts. But Paul Martin should not be claiming credit for the heavy lifting of others.

Posted by Bruce Gottfred at May 26, 2004 09:12 AM | TrackBack