Goodale launched a blistering attack on the Tory incompetence, and as the days pass and the NDP is faced with further choices as to supporting the Harper Tories or defeating the government on confidence votes, they should consider these words carefully and make the right decision for the country:
"Constantly changing stories do not demonstrate competence or inspire trust. Therefore where does that leave us? It leaves us with a government that failed to see a recession was on its way, a government that ignored all of the warnings; a government that squandered Canada's fiscal security before there was a recession; a government that was wilfully blind, still denying the recession even after it arrived; a government that first tabled a wrong-headed austerity program, not a stimulus plan. It was going in exactly the wrong direction. When it finally and belatedly admitted that was a recession here and the stimulus plan was necessary, it was slow and clumsy in bringing it forward. Its so-called plan was completely suffocated by Conservative partisanship.
The Conservatives were preoccupied with photo opportunities, with advertising, with claiming credit but in fact, less than 20 per cent of what they promised has actually been delivered to date. Even their own favourite independent economists predict that by the end of this year they will not get that figure up to 30 per cent.
Meanwhile, 486,000 full time Canadian jobs have been destroyed on the government's watch. It promised 190,000. It lost 486,000. In the coming year the government is now promising to find magically, mystically 220,000 jobs. However the Royal bank, the TD Bank, the OECD and every other credible forecaster is predicting another 200,000 jobs will be lost. Unemployed will come near 10 per cent. "
