Robert Marleau resigned from his government position early in this past week. He stated that it was for personal reasons. And you know what? I don’t blame him, he’s worked as an information commissioner under the most secretive and dubious government this country has seen in decades. I imagine he’s left the job, frustrated. 

Coincidentally, that very same day that Marleau resigned Ottawa let the news out that it doesn’t consider the cost of the Afghan war as something the taxpayers should be allowed to know or has any interest in ever telling us how much we’ve paid. Or will eventually pay. The official excuse was one of “national security”. I flat-out don’t understand how that works, and am calling shenanigans on that. I really don’t think it’s possible that there is a way that knowing how much money we’ve spent is going to breach some kind of hole in our national defense. That is nothing short of complete B.S.! 

Is this information somehow so sensitive that a terrorist group or cell can translate it in such a way as to gain access to our country by a means so unheard of that our very system of defense is unprepared, improperly trained or ill-equipped to deal with it? ….or have they just spent far too much money and don’t want the taxpayer to know?

Occam’s Razor, I believe, is very applicable here and will eventually show to be very accurate. 

That doesn’t play well with Harper’s hardline #1 election promise of fiscal responsibility. though, to be fair he’s inherited the country’s place in the Afghanistan  war… But I still get the feeling that if his policies held any water he would be proudly showing us his war budget, showing off about how great it was. 

It’s frustrating, though. Because Kevin Page, the budget officer who want’s to reveal the cost of the war, is forecasting deficits for our current government and those predictions are completely on the opposite side of the than the Finance Minister’s proclamations of surpluses in the future. The real kick in the pants is that Page has consitesntly been far more accurate than the the minister on these matters. And the FM’s job IS to be accurate with how money is coming in and going out of government spending.

You see, we threw the liberal government out of office because of how secretive and dishonest they were with the budget and the conservatives promised that they would change that trend and have a transparent and accountable parliament. That roadmap looked great on paper, so it’s really infuriating to see that it stayed on paper and never saw the light of day.