Prime Minister Harper's third "economic report" was, of course, full of upbeat positive optimism. But it carefully avoided the gaping hole in the economic policies of all three of the national parties already in Parliament: the fact that money for "stimulus" is borrowed, thus plunging future generations deeper into the inescapable debt of compounding interest.

Only one political party-CHP Canada-has proposed a stimulus plan that would develop needed infrastructure without plunging our children and grandchildren into debt.

In fact, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Mark Carney, has also hinted at the benefits of such a plan; but his proposal was quickly shunted aside by the federal Cabinet. Mr. Carney suggested that an unwanted rise in the Canadian dollar (which hurts our crucial exports) might best be controlled by "quantitative easing."

Overnight bank interest rates are already at 0.25%; so there is little room for further downward movement. "Quantitative easing" essentially means increasing the supply of Government-Created Money (GCM) as opposed to Bank-Created Money (BCM). That is, in essence, what the CHP Infrastructure Program purposed: that money for infrastructure projects should be created by the Bank of Canada-not borrowed from the chartered banks-and loaned, virtually interest-free, to local governments and public authorities for needed infrastructure renewal. As the economy improves, those local authorities would be able to repay the loans from increased revenues.

The only difference between the CHP Infrastructure Program and the Bank of Canada's "quantitative easing" is that merely increasing the money supply by printing more money-quantitative easing-would deliberately depress the value of the dollar by inflating the currency. Further, such a policy has the disastrous effect of eroding the standard of living of Canadians. Simply put, inflation drives prices up, so the wages and savings of Canadians buy less. Inflation is nothing more than a hidden tax-and a hidden tax of the worst kind because those least able to pay bear the greatest burden.

The CHP Infrastructure Plan, on the other hand, would allow the Bank of Canada to do two things beneficial to Canadians and the Canadian economy. First it would allow the Bank of Canada to begin the process of getting Canada out of debt by paying back and thus retiring the BCM with all of the compounding interest attached to it. Second, as the economy responds positively to this sustainable stimulus, it allows the Bank of Canada to retire the new currency as it is repaid, allowing the Bank to control inflation, as well as the strength of the dollar.

Why did the Conservative government not follow those proposals? We can only assume that they have a standing commitment to the chartered banks. That would explain why the proportion of GCM to BCM has fallen from 50% to 2% in the last half-century: the real power behind Canada's government, regardless of the party in power, is still in the hands of banks.