Government Funding For Perverse Parade - A Costly Mistake?

That's what they say now. Someone in the Ministry has merely overlooked a $400,000 expense...

SASKATOON, July 6, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The revelation of $400,000 in funding from the federal Conservatives for the recent Toronto Gay Pride parade, which is notorious for its inclusion of full frontal nudity and public sex acts by homosexuals, came as a shock to most social conservatives in the nation. According to Conservative MP Brad Trost, however, the decision to fund the event also came a shock to most of the Conservative caucus, even those inside the Prime Minister's office.

Speaking to LifeSiteNews.com from his riding office in Saskatoon today, the 36-year-old Conservative said, "The pro-life and the pro-family community should know and understand that the tourism funding money that went to the gay pride parade in Toronto was not government policy, was not supported by - I think it's safe to say by a large majority - of the MPs. This was a very isolated decision."
...
The MP attributed the move to "sloppiness."

"Canadian taxpayers, even non-social-conservative ones, don't want their tax dollars to go to events that are polarizing or events that are more political than touristic in nature," he said.

More >>>

When a supposedly "fis-con" government doesn't have the guts to cut all the ideologically-driven spending, don't be surprised, when they make a $400,000 "mistake". (It's not a big deal when you got billions to waste.) Now they're conducting a spending review (oh, well, better late than never).

Here is a better idea - implement zero-based budgeting. Let every single program expense expire at the end of the fiscal year, so that departments have to justify all their expenditures, not just the extra money they get on top of last year's spending. If that had been done back in 2006 - not only none of those costly "mistakes" would have been possible, but also the government could have kept program expenses within reasonable limits, rather than allowing them to swell from $175B in 2005/6 to over $215B or so (not counting the "stimulus") in 2009/10.

Even now it's not too late. If zero-based budgeting is implemented, if the burden of proof is on the departments to explain why they still need those funds (rather than on the government to explain the reason behind spending cuts,) the government could easily find $15B to slash from the budget to get the books balanced by 2011/12 and to legislate mandatory debt repayments in the following fiscal years.