When Stephen Harper finally won his “strong, stable, national Conservative majority government” in 2011, he did so after a campaign promising to reign in government spending and to bring the federal budget out of deficit by 2015.

“We will reduce the costs of government through finding efficiencies through a thorough strategic and operating expense review,” Harper said in April of 2011.

And so, once safely returned to office, the Conservatives undertook an extensive review of government services to find things to cut. Never mind that this government had contributed to a 30 per cent increase in federal spending and added 32,000 more people to the federal payroll. Now it was the Age of Austerity, and by golly we were going to be fiscal conservatives again and balance the budget.

So how did they do?

A new report out of the Parliamentary Budget Office says that even though the Tories made a four per cent cut in government services, internal spending — communications, information technology, human resources and financial management — actually rose eight per cent. Overall, the government only managed to cut a measly 0.6 per cent in spending.

So while front-line services have been reduced for the average schmoe, spending on government lackeys has gone up. That’s the exact opposite of what the Conservatives promised when they started the review process. Then again, during the spending review they also thought it wise to pay $90,000 a day to a consulting firm that would then tell them how to save money. Mad props to the consultants who negotiated that contract, but bad dick on the government for agreeing to it.

None of this will likely matter by the time of the next election in 2015. The Conservatives will continue to declare themselves the party of responsible adults who are good with money, and voters will likely buy into it. Again.

Fuuuuuuuck.

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