It looks like it only takes $16 worth of tax cuts to get Tory MPs to support a Liberal budget. If enough Conservative MPs carry out their plan to abstain from the budget vote in the House of Commons, the Liberals will easily pass it over the objections of the NDP and Bloc Quebecois.

In spite of massive over-taxation - politicians call it a "surplus" - year after year after year, last week's federal budget delivers a $16 tax cut in 2006, with plans for an eventual $192-per-year tax cut in 2009. This means Ottawa will continue taxing the incomes of people earning minimum wage. It means that by 2009, a person will keep only the first $10,000 of earnings before Ottawa takes 16%, then 22%, then 26% and finally 29% of her pay cheque. It means that in 2006, a Canadian family will only be able to keep its first $15,232 before it starts paying 16%, then 22%, then 26% and then 29% income tax. It means that Tax Freedom Day - the day we've finished working to support three levels of government and start working for ourselves - will continue to arrive in late June rather than in May or April.

But the so-called "Conservatives" in the House of Commons are satisfied with a personal income tax cut of just $16 next year.

Continued over-taxation is not the only problem with last week's budget. The Liberals have now started on their grand plan to spend $5 billion of our money on government-run daycare institutions. There is no help at all for parents who want to care for their own children at home.

Stephen Harper's Conservative Opposition supposedly favours a per-child tax exemption to empower all parents with choice on child care. But now they are poised to support a federal budget which does absolutely nothing for families who make the difficult financial choice to have one parent look after children at home.

The Conservatives are supposedly against the Kyoto Protocol, but by supporting this budget they will endorse wasting billions of tax dollars on it. The Liberals have no plan on how Canada will meet its Kyoto targets, but they still plan to spend billions of our money. With the U.S., China, India, and most countries not participating, it makes no sense for Canada to hurt its economy in pursuit of impossible objectives. If federal bureaucrats can't keep track of guns in Canada, how will they ever keep track of a colourless, odourless gas in other countries

Conservatives are against wasting tax dollars on a useless gun registry which does nothing to reduce crime. But if Tory MPs don't defeat this budget another one billion tax dollars will be wasted by 2012, in addition to the one billion already wasted since 1995.

Continued over-taxation of individuals and families, wasted tax dollars on Kyoto and a useless gun registry, and billions spent on institutional child care are good reasons for Stephen Harper and all Conservative MPs to show up for the budget vote, and vote "No."

If that triggers another election, so be it.

The cost of another election is but a tiny fraction of the cost of continued over-taxation Canadians will suffer if this budget passes.

Mr. Harper, if not you, who

And if not now, when