You know things are bad in Ottawa when Ralph Goodale looks to Ralph Klein for inspiration. Yes, the federal government saw Ralph Klein’s “prosperity bonus“, saw the lackluster reaction of Albertans to it, saw it get criticized as an uninspiring policy and said: “gosh, maybe we should do that.”

From now on, Canadians will get money from Ottawa whenever the surplus turns out to be larger than expected (no word yet on whether or not this kick back will be delivered in cash, in brown envelopes).

Even though I trashed Klein for this, at least he’s in the position of having money to burn. Paul Martin has made a 25% Debt-to-GDP ratio his grand ambition (yawn) so refusing to pay down the debt seems like an odd course of action. It also seems like a rather haphazard way to shill out money for a guy who:

a) Was a good Finance Minister
b) Has been accused of lacking vision