Expect a contract to be put out on Kevin Page

President Steve has got to be cursing the day he made Kevin Page the Parliamentary Budget Officer. After all, Steve is in charge and what he says is the Word of God. That a mere mortal, such as Page, should contradict the Word of God is good reason to strike with a bolt of lightning.

The current misunderstanding between God and Page is over the chance of Canada entering a period of structural deficit. In a recent report (Page ignored the edict from above to vacate the Hill during prorogation), Page opined that there was going to be a structural deficit going forward if the government did not make the right (according to him) moves.

"Unfortunately, you've got to start dealing with the structural fiscal problem that's going to get bigger and bigger and bigger," Page said in an interview, "We're saying right now the government has no targets. That's not a good place to be. We don't know how much of this debt is going to be passed on to future generations."

Not so, insists Harper. "If we do what we've said we'll do, which is end stimulus spending when the recession is over. . . and if we discipline spending growth in the future, I don't think that should be a serious problem. If you look at Canada's deficit compared to other countries, it is much lower, and more importantly our debt levels are much, much lower. So the possibility of getting into a debt-interest-payment trap is, in my judgment, not high."

Well who can you believe? Page, who calls a spade a freaking shovel? Or Harper, who refused to see an economic tsunami coming and had to be pushed into acting?

I know who I believe.