So, as I am a big geek, I have opted to add a bunch of the Harper Government’s RSS feeds to my google reader. Most are pretty mundane- Harper says this, Gary Lunn says that, so on and so forth.
But then I noticed a couple of press releases that came out over the last couple of days, announcing that the no-longer-very-new-any-more government had made a some “repayable investments” into a couple of projects.
Now, I could be wrong, but “repayable investment” to me means “loan”, as in, we like what you are doing, so we will front you the cash. But we still want it back. I have absolutely no problem with that, that’s what governments can and should do to encourage development. Heck, if the idea is worthy enough, it might even be valuable to just give people the cash- that’s okay.
But what is more dubious is not calling something what it is. Or, for that matter, making it seem in the press release that this is anything but a loan.
Fellow Travellers 
February 8th, 2007 
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This program - Technology Partnerships Canada - was called a ‘Liberal boondoggle’ while the Conservatives were in opposition. Under intense pressure, Paul Martin canned the program. Now the Conservatives are reviving it. This is an historic moment in Canadian politics: the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is taking the Conservatives to task!