The detail on the federal government cut backs is going from bad to worse. The Ottawa Citizen today reported that there will essentially be no details of budget cuts in the March 29th budget.
The government maintains that transparency is desirable...unless it applies to a major policy thrust, and then it's a billion dollar game of "hide and seek." Instead of publishing the plans that may be somewhat preliminary, the government is not planning to publish any specifics.
For those who want more details, they'll need to fish through the 386 page main estimates as well as the supplementary estimates and read the tea leaves. I encourage readers to examine these documents to see just how transparent a process this is going to be.
Unfortunately, with this continued lack of transparency, cuts will only be clear after they've happened and shuttered services will only become evident when Canadians try to rely on them but find the doors locked. The unemployment impacts cannot be planned for as they will not be known in advance.
We need much more transparency on this process.
