Budget blues

Re: Incoherent Coddling And Other Old Tricks, Andrew Coyne, March 22. One can expect Andrew Coyne to issue his usual rant against the Conservative budget. Just as one can expect the usual rant from Bob Rae and Thomas Mulclair.

Living in the United States for a few months, one really appreciates a government that: a) presents a budget b) is trying to reduce the debt of the government without bringing the country to its knees — a balanced approach to a difficult problem.

Canadians should thank Stephen Harper and his team for a steady hand on the rudder.

Anne Robinson, Toronto. Re: Last Chance To Get It Right, Andrew Coyne, March 19. Andrew Coyne predicted that Thursday’s federal budget will only be remarkable if it manages to undo “the damage done in Flaherty’s first seven budgets.” Actually, our Finance Minister had two opportunities to create a distinctive legacy for himself in 2006 and 2011, with the renewals of the inflation-control agreements with the Bank of Canada (BoC). On both occasions he could have refused to sign off on these without some reforms in the dysfunctional target inflation indicator, which hasn’t changed since 1991.

On Tuesday the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published the first updates of two experimental inflation measures. The first is the CPIH measure (the new measure of consumer price inflation including owner occupiers’ housing costs), praised by Mark Carney to the U.K. Treasury Select Committee. Mr. Carney totally ignored the other new inflation measure in his testimony, the RPIJ (a Retail Prices Index-based measure that will use a geometric [Jevons] formula in place of one type of arithmetic formula).

A competent minister of finance would have asked Mr. Carney for a written response as to why he would have championed the CPIH measure and completely ignored the RPIJ measure, which is so much closer conceptually to the inflation indicator the BoC has always targeted. Mr. Flaherty should be dismissed.

Andy Baldwin, Ottawa.