Get It?

"Did you hear the one about the Finance Minister who believes in Self-Sufficiency but wants the federal government to give him more handouts?"

"Greg Byrne"

A horse walks into a bar and orders a Shirley Temple with a side of self-suffiency. The bartender says, "Hey, you know we don't serve your kind in here". And the horse says, "Greg Byrne".

"Knock-Knock"

"Who's there?"

"Finance Minister who believes in Self-Sufficiency but wants the feds to give him more handouts."

"Finance Minister who believes in Self-Sufficiency but wants the feds to give him more handouts - who?"

"Greg Byrne"

A Priest, a Rabbi, and an Imam are walking in the park and talking about self-sufficiency. The Priest says, "In order to have self-sufficiency you need to have a growing economy". The Rabbi says, "Self-sufficiency means doing more with less and not asking for handouts". And the Imam says, "Greg Byrne".

There once was a Finance Minister from Lincoln,

Who about self-sufficiency was thinkin'.

But more money from the feds,

Was what was in in head,

"Greg Byrne"

** News item: Finance Minister says despite growing economy he doesn't want Ottawa to lower transfer payments to NB.

What Did You Expect?

After a week of traveling around New Brunswick, the Finance Minister has announced some surprising news - all the people who came to the pre-budget meetings want the government to spend more money.

These meetings were not recorded or televised so we will have to take his word for it. But from the sounds of things there were plenty of union reps at all the stops encouraging more spending on government programs.

Then again, Mr. Byrne, what did you expect?

The Liberal government put out a pre-budget questionnaire that asked people how soon they would like to see the deficit paid off: 3 years from now, 4 years from now, or 5 years from now.

That's right - they told the public that balancing the books immediately was not even an option.

So when you tell people in advance you want to keep spending and borrowing more money that we have - why would people come to your meetings with ideas for spending less?

Liberals Do Have Hearts

We here at the NB Conservative are wishing Greg Byrne a healthy and speedy recovery from his recent heart surgery. We could make a lot of obvious jokes about this topic of course, but in the interest of being nice every once in a while, we will just offer our best wishes to the Minister of Business New Brunswick and his family.