Canada Can't Afford Another SRTC Fiasco!

Since I well remember the disastrous Scientific Research Tax Credit program of the mid-80's and the billions that it cost the taxpayers of Canada with very little actual research being conducted and I have noticed troubling similarities developing with the government's Infrastructure Stimulus Fund, I submitted the following 'Letter to the Editor' to 21 'major' regional newspapers across Canada, almost all of them in the Canwest/Global fold (which shows just how much concentration of media there is in Canada!). Much to my dismay, as far as I can tell, only 1 newspaper, the Winnipeg Sun (which is NOT a Canwest/Global property), published this short piece. What possible reason could the others have for not wanting to help see that taxpayers' hard-earned money is spent in an efficient, effective and transparent manner?

Dear Editor,
Seems like everyone nowadays is in an 'all-fired' hurry to spend billions of dollars on infrastructure funding, which of course, is just taxpayers' money (minus a 15-20% 'handling' fee) being returned to the chosen few. In our rush to 'stimulate' the economy, we need to remember the example of the Scientific Research Tax Credit program of the mid 1980's, a federal government program which cost the taxpayers of Canada almost $8 billion (in 2009 dollars), with it being widely reported that almost $4 billion of that resulted in no actual scientific research being done (i.e., it was obtained under false pretences).
I personally know of 3 infrastructure grants which were awarded to applicants who did not meet the requirements. In our haste, let's be sure that this latest program amounts to substantially more than 'shovelling money off the back of a truck'. Canada cannot afford another expensive, failed program - strict controls must be in place, beginning with the selection, without political influence, of projects that best meet the program's criteria right through to the spending of the money and, if the government can't satisfy taxpayers that they can do that, then our money must stay in the bank.