Conservative MPs

Government Dept: Oh, and the penny's on the way out. Ho hum, according to Montreal Gazette. Finance previously had said spending cuts would fall in a range between $4 billion and $8 billion, on operating spending of about $75 billion. It delivered cuts at the low end of that range, of $5.2 billion. Tellingly, rather than trumpet the extent of the cuts, the government was at pains to emphasize their modesty and they blinked. O Budget 2012, which has been trumpeted for weeks by Conservative insiders as a "transformative" document that would set the country on a new path toward smaller government, landed with a whimper rather than a bang Thursday, delivering the usual gewgaws, modest spending cuts and precious little that will excite small-c conservatives. Indeed, this budget is not substantially different, either in content or tone, from any of the Harper government's previous six, except for the limited spending reductions. It may as well have come from a Chr tien-Martin Liberal government, for all the red meat it throws to the Conservative base. A majority of Conservative MPs had been pushing for a radical overhaul of government operations and substantial reductions in spending that would have allowed them to campaign on a balanced budget in 2015. Clearly, with the Prime Minister's Office on the defensive politically after two months of missteps and scandal, the hawks were overruled. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.