OTTAWA – With 1.6 million Canadians out of work, Stockwell Day, the Conservative government’s newly minted Treasury board president, says that the prescription for our ailing economy is drastic funding cuts.

“The Minister is turning basic economics on its head. He is financially illiterate and that’s dangerous,” said New Democrat Treasury Board critic Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre). “With so many Canadians out of work, the last thing we need is a hard-right ideologue closing the taps on the stimulus program. What we need is a vision and a plan for job creation, which will grow the economy. Instead, Day is going to make Canadians pay for the tax cuts that his boss is giving to big corporations and their CEOs.”

In the lead-up to the next federal budget, Day, along with Prime Minister Harper, is arguing that the best way to balance the books is to slash government spending.

“Against all of the facts, they’re promoting Conservative ideology instead of common sense and putting partisan strategy ahead of the needs of Canadians,” said Martin. “Paul Martin took us down this road in the 1990s and we all know where it ends. Our vital social programs – everything from health care to education– suffer, our economy is no better and we all pay the price.”

“Stephen Harper once said that he thinks about strategy 24 hours a day. It’s time he started thinking about the needs of Canadians,” said Martin. “Slashing spending and tearing apart our social safety net may be popular with his old Reform party friends, but it will weaken, not strengthen, our economy and it will leave Canadian families even further behind.”