Conservatives Rewarding Conservative voters, CBC and G&M prove

It's been proven. Now, in addition to Liberal Party analysis of stimulus money distribution, the Globe and Mail and the CBC have each done some analysis of their own which supports the Liberal Party's claims. Seems all that bluster on the part of the Prime Minister about Toronto receiving so much stimulus was inane.

In the Globe and Mail's analysis of the Recreational Infrastructure in Canada program, it found that Tory ridings received $2.1 million on average, compared with $1.5 million for opposition ridings. If the numbers for these opposition ridings are broken down further, it emerges in clear fashion that the Conservatives are discriminating against the Liberals for the NDP on average receives $1.8 million, and the Liberals only $1.4 million.

An argument has been made by Ontario provincial minister George Smitherman that this is due to Conservative ridings being more rural, and thus having more municipalities, and more recreation facilities. In addition, he indicates that this analysis only reveals a pattern of partisan allocation of funding because of the narrow focus of the analysis.

However, the CBC analysed a separate stimulus program, the Infrastructure Stimulus Fund, yielding similar results. Of all the government funding in this program, 60 per cent has gone to Conservative ridings, while 40 per cent has gone to opposition ridings. This contradicts the PM's claims earlier this week that opposition ridings received approximately 50 percent of funding.

The argument that the rural proclivity of Conservative ridings skews the analysis may yet hold, but for this fact. Ralph Goodale's riding in rural Saskatchewan only received $4.8 million, compared to the Tory riding adjacent that received $6.5 million. This shows that even in rural areas, there is a deliberate decision to award more money to Conservative constituencies.

All this goes to show that once again, the PM's facts are fiction, compounding the scandal. Thank goodness for an inquisitive media.

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