Is Paul Martin fit to be Canadas Prime Minister?

* Paul Martin reduced the number of unemployed eligible

to receive UI from 74% to 38% and reduced the benefits

for those who do quality.. The UI fund built up a huge

$40 billion surplus - billions were robbed from that

surplus to pay down the deficit. This was not government

money - it was premiums paid by workers and employers

into an insurance fund. Paul Martin just took it anyway.

* Paul Martin is known for having slain the deficit

dragon but in fact he did much more. In his 1995 budget

speech Martin boasted not about bringing down the

deficit (by slashing social spending) but of permanently

changing what government does: Indeed, as far as we

are concerned, it is this reform in the structure of

government spending in the very redefinition of

government itself that is the main achievement of

this budget. ...This budget overhauls not only how

government works but what government does. In

other words, Paul Martin used the excuse of the deficit

to permanently reduce the role of government - whether

in medicare, education, agriculture or food safety.

Heres the record - you be the judge:

* Our next prime minister went on to boast about

knocking Canada back to the 1950s: By 1996-97, we

will have reduced program spending from $120

billion in 1993-94 to under $108 billion. Relative to

the size of our economy, program spending will be

lower in 1996-97 than at any time since 1951. In

fact he did even better. By 1997 we were spending at

the same level as we were in 1949 - even though as a

nation we were three times wealthier.

* There is a huge disconnect between what Paul Martin

said in his public speeches as finance minister and what

he actually did. This is Paul Martin in his 1996 budget

speech: Let us act, not as special interests, but as

stewards of the national interest knowing that the

destiny of our children is in our hands. As he spoke

those noble words there were nearly two million children

in Canada living in poverty, an increase of 10% just in

the two years he had been finance minister, and a higher