With the firing of former Ottawa Citizen publisher, Russell Mills, this past Sunday, some folks in Ottawa wondered whether John Manley, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of, well, almost everything, would become the new publisher of the paper. Why not He's received other promotions on recent Sundays.

Amidst this chaos, the Deputy PM donned his Finance Minister's cap and appeared before the Commons finance committee this week to provide parliamentarians - and Canadians - with an economic infomercial. The only things missing were a 1-800 order line and paid studio audience.

In fairness to Minister Manley, he's only been on the job for three weeks. And between acting as the PM's apologist in during question period, chief political minister for Ontario, federal infrastructure guru, border crossing point-man with the Yanks, Tim Horton's drive-thru guy, MP, husband, father and a marathon runner, at best he's spent all of 28 minutes at the finance department - with 4 minutes lost to elevator rides.

His remarks were textbook "our economy grew at a robust rate", "core inflation remains well within the target range", "opportunities for Canadians and their families", blah, blah, blah. His testimony was calmly reassuring but hardly enlightening.
However, we did learn a few things. First, Mr. Manley confirmed that the federal surplus for 2001/2002 is about $6 billion. By law, this amount will go toward the national debt, now pegged at $547.4 billion.

What this really means is Ottawa raked in almost $10 billion in over-taxation last year. Take $6 billion and add $500 million for the Africa fund and $2 billion for the Strategic Infrastructure Foundation, both funded out of last year's taxes -- courtesy of last December's budget - and voila, an $8.5 billion surplus. Add some corporate tax rebates and year-end adjustments and the surplus easily climbs close to $10 billion.

The Minister also told the committee that Canada's economy experienced real growth of 2.9% in the fourth quarter of 2001 and an annualized rate of 6% in the first quarter of 2002. With the OECD and IMF both predicting that Canada will lead the G-7 in growth for 2002 and 2003, it's safe to assume surpluses in both years will likely top $15 billion.

And the Minster promised a full update this fall which foretells a February 2003 budget.

Of course, John Manley's testimony was problematic in what he said and what he did not say. With respect to further tax relief, he promised tax cuts when "fiscal resources permit." Translation: don't hold your breath. And sadly, he continued the fiction - no, let's be clear, the blatant falsehood - that the feds cuts taxes by $100 billion in 2000. Not true!

When bracket creep is factored out, CPP premium increases are factored in and the Canada Tax Child Benefit is measured as a spending program (that's what it is) instead of a tax cut, this figure becomes $47.4 billion over five years. Still impressive, but not a $100 billion as advertised.

The finance minister also skirted the issue of any plans to pump needed dollars into Defence or to engage other levels of government on the cities agenda as his predecessor, Mr. Martin, had promised.

Mr. Manley also failed to reveal the tab for anticipated farm subsidies and softwood lumber bailout packages. Place your money on the details of these initiatives floating out during the dog days of summer when Parliament is in recess and no one is around to point out that reason for both packages is a direct result of Ottawa's policy failures at the international trade table.

Overall, Minister Manley's first committee appearance warrants a "C" grade. As our teachers used to write, "there's plenty of room for improvement, especially when it comes to simple mathematics."