OSBORNE'S BUDGET BAKED LONG BEFORE TUESDAY

If prudence was ever a word in Tom Osborne’s lexicon it was likely extracted as a condition of accepting the Finance post. Profligacy, now known in this province as status quo, is a more likely fit when the Minister delivers, on Tuesday, the seventh deficit Budget in a row.

Ask public sector labour. Ask the health care sector. They know there can be no change because their fiscal arrangements — which represent a very high percentage of total budgeted expenditures — have been carved in stone.

Then there are the Polls. When the Premier’s popularity climbs amidst a refusal to acknowledge a fiscal crisis — one that grows each day — it might be right to suggest that the public, too, is content to leave the pain for someone — anyone — else.  

It is possible that other factors are at play; that what is really influencing Ball’s polling gains is a Tory leadership vacuum. But I’m not so sure about that.