4 key questions about today's Ontario budget

This afternoon, Premier Kathleen Wynne's government will table its first budget since she took the reins of the Ontario Liberal Party just over three months ago.

While the premier has called on opposition parties to read the final budget before passing judgment, Tim Hudak's Progressive Conservatives have already made it clear they won't be supporting it.

That has left the New Democrats in the driver's seat, able to decide whether to push the province into an election or to support what the government is offering.

• Watch CBCNews.ca for live coverage of the budget at 4 p.m. ET

If this scenario sounds familiar to Ontarians, that's because it's exactly what happened last year. The minority Liberals are once again looking to what the NDP wants, though this time around, the premier has said the government won't be "held hostage" to specific demands.

What will the 2013 budget look like?

The budget won't be officially unveiled until Thursday afternoon, but the government has certainly given broad previews of what it will contain.

The Liberals have said there will be nearly $300 million earmarked for helping young people get on a clear career path in Ontario. Wynne has said a key part of the government's proposed program would be a wage subsidy for employers who provide work or training for up to six months.

The budget will also contain details on steps the government will take to lower auto insurance rates, which is something the New Democrats have been looking for the Liberals to deliver. Finance Minister Charles Sousa said the government wants to push rates down "quickly," but it is not precisely clear how rapidly that can happen.

Ahead of the budget, Sousa has said that the province's 2012-13 deficit is now estimated at $9.8 billion, some $5 billion less than had previously been projected.

Asked Wednesday if the budget would raise taxes, Sousa said it will explain "how we're going to control spending, how we're going to engage and increase GDP growth and how we're going to maintain our tax at the low levels that they are now."

Is there any way to get the Tories to support the budget?

It appears not.

Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak says the province needs to change the direction it is going in. His party has vowed to vote against the budget. (CBC)

The Progressive Conservatives have already vowed to vote against the budget, which they say is being brought forward by a government that simply needs to go.

"Fundamentally if you believe your house is crumbling down, if it's falling apart at the foundations, you don't simply settle to change the wallpaper and a new coat of paint," Hudak told reporters on Wednesday.

"You rebuild the structure, you make it stronger, you start anew."

The Tories moved a non-confidence motion against the Liberals earlier this week, which can't go forward without the other parties' consent. The premier has said that the budget will give opposition parties the chance to express their level of confidence in the government.

Could the NDP pay a political price for supporting the budget?

Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said that she needs to see what is contained in the budget and her party will then have to consider its contents.

Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said that her party will take its time in reviewing the budget. (CBC)

"We're going to take our time and be very thoughtful about this," she said Wednesday.

Hudak suggested Wednesday that it seems illogical for the New Democrats to continue to prop up a minority government that has disappointed them.

"I think the NDP have to ask themselves: Do they really believe that keeping a government going that has crossed the line towards corruption, where the NDP comes in the house every day and says that they've lied, they're corrupt, that they blew all this money — are they going then shrug their shoulders and say: 'We're going to keep this act going?" Hudak said.

"It's time for change."

What happens next?

A vote on the budget motion will likely occur within one to three weeks. The Liberals will need the support of at least one opposition party for it to pass.

But a separate vote will then take place on the budget bill, so that it can be implemented.

Last year, this part of the process dragged on for weeks as the Liberals and New Democrats squabbled and adjustments were made.

The 2012 budget finally passed 52-35 in the middle of June and an election was averted. The New Democrats simply abstained from voting that day, while the Progressive Conservatives voted against it.

As then premier Dalton McGuinty told reporters after the budget finally passed, he believed that "in the end, working together, we found a way to make our minority government work."

This time around the Liberals have fewer seats in the legislature. At the moment, the minority government has 51 seats in the 107-seat legislature, while the Progressive Conservatives have 36 and the Democrats 18. Two seats remain vacant following the departures of Dwight Duncan and Chris Bentley, both of whom resigned from the legislature in recent months.

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Ron MacLean: Dressing room is place for all media

Locker room availability frees the reporter to choose his or her subject and get a coveted 1-on-1 interview. (Marianne Helm/Getty Images)

It's Don's story. But I was caught in it. As you may have sensed, I had no advance warning of the topics of Duncan Keith's angry interview last week or female reporters in the dressing room being raised this past Saturday. That's rare. And it's OK. Don and I generally go over the subject matter. But, of course, we freewheel a fair bit too.

Should an explanation of his "I don't believe women should be in a male dressing room" be made during our Toronto at Boston telecast on Wednesday, just knowing how limited time is and it won't be possible to add my take on the incident, I felt I should share my views here for the record.

Much of what I'm about to say is informed by a legendary sportswriter, the late Leonard Koppett and his memoir, The Rise and Fall of the Press Box.

Koppett was primarily a baseball writer and he explains the history of reporters in the clubhouse for what it is: a publicity arrangement. It's business.

The clubhouse, which in other sports is called the dressing or locker room, belongs to the club management. The rules of that room are dictated by the club, not the performers.

Coaches and players often view any outsider's entry into their private place as an intrusion. They think of it as their home. But for a brief window each day, it's not. It's their office. And it is the reporter's office as well. It's where the players and media transact in the same business: selling the game. The reporters get stories, generate publicity and the team sells tickets. Players resent but must accept this relationship.

High and moral posturing

Any high and moral posturing by a reporter as concerns journalism should always be tempered by that reality. But make no mistake: journalism does come from that room both through things said by team representatives and in some cases as the result of things seen by reporters (i.e. strange pills in a locker).

The climate, while beneficial to the club and the media outlet, is often hostile. That's why there is a 10-minute cooling off period before reporters are allowed in. Home team dressing rooms offer a myriad of escapes so that players can avoid the press, but visiting rooms are often crowded.

One team has always lost. The reporter is on deadline. TV lights, cameras, microphones. Add family and friends who are often allowed in and players feel besieged. There are so many factors in how quickly this symbiotic partnership can degenerate. Players, when cornered, can behave rudely and often abusively.

Don has experienced it. So have I. Often reporters ignore it because it's bad for business to raise the issue. Here again, the rules of engagement must be set by the club and the league.

Seeking players

You may ask, why let reporters in? Why not just bring the players to a press conference? It's two-fold. If reporters don't receive such access there's a risk they'll seek out the player not brought to the press area. They'll seek him out in a restaurant, bar or even at the family house. The dressing room is convenient. It's quick. And the room availability frees the reporter to choose his or her subject and get the coveted 1-on-1 interview.

When this business arrangement began, the voice in the conversation was homogenous. You had newspapermen and publicity men driving the message.

As with all reporting, our world is better off now that females and reporters of all beliefs and backgrounds have joined the conversation. Broadened its scope.

All this said, it's only natural that as each of us brings our integrity, which in the end is the ultimate compass on ethics and responsibility, and our belief system to the story, there will be debate. Where else can wisdom be found?

I'll let Don speak to his intentions, but it is rather obvious it stems from the equally contentious topic of chivalry. There's not much calling for a knight these days and yet there are elements of such schooling which must inform the discussion if we are to achieve what Alan Dershowitz described as "Rights from Wrongs."

I was disappointed for Don because I knew his solution was wrong. But I wasn't disappointed in him. I admired his commitment to exploring a root cause.

As for the dressing room and the media, it's business. A job for all.

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Parents of autistic children 'exasperated' by financial costs

Amanda Telford's decision to leave her severely autistic son at a provincial developmental services office in Ottawa this week was a drastic step for a frustrated parent.

Telford says caring for her 19-year-old son, Philipp, without sufficient government support had become unmanageable.

The Telford case is particularly acute, but it's reflective of challenges many Ontario parents of autistic children share.

Laurie Pearce's 18-year-old son, Devon McMahon, has been diagnosed with autism as well as a developmental disorder. Although he is highly verbal, Devon has cognitive issues and requires specialized instruction at school.

'There are thousands of parents of children with special needs who are exasperated, they're finished, they're done.'—Frank Viti, Autism Speaks Canada

The Toronto teen also needs constant supervision in the community because he may get lost or confused and not know how to seek help, says Pearce.

"He has huge limitations. He's 18 and he's never gone to the corner store by himself," Pearce says.

Because of his developmental disability, Pearce says Devon will probably go to school until he's 21, at which point the school will no longer accept him as a student.

Devon is unlikely to have a job after he graduates, and Pearce is dreading the possibility that he may be left without any government support come the fall of 2015.

"I have a countdown on my phone that tells me that in 860 days, we're going to be completely screwed because that's the day the school bus stops coming to the front door," she says.

Parents 'exasperated' with autistic care

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says affects an estimated one in 88 people.

Amanda Telford says Philipp is living with a severe form of autism that has him functioning at the level of a two-year-old. He also has Tourette's syndrome and insulin-dependent diabetes. (CBC)

Individuals diagnosed with autism typically have problems communicating or interacting effectively with other people, and they often suffer from associated conditions such as gastrointestinal or seizure disorders.

As the Telford case shows, raising a severely autistic child requires constant care and a litany of treatments.

"There are thousands of parents of children with special needs who are exasperated, they're finished, they're done," says Frank Viti, president and CEO of Autism Speaks Canada, a privately funded advocacy group.

Viti says there are many costs involved in the care of an autistic child. Depending on when the diagnosis is made, autistic children may receive behaviour therapies aimed at improving their communication and coping skills. The cost varies from province to province, but Viti says that on average, this type of therapy runs about $60,000 a year.

Then there's the cost of treating conditions often associated with autism.

Pearce says that from the age of three to 13, her son had a seizure disorder. Because they didn't have a drug plan, the family spent about $1,500 a year on anti-seizure medication.

Viti says parents may also have to shell out for treatments to deal with gastrointestinal issues, as well as specialized foods — for example, many autistic children are wheat or gluten-intolerant, which means the parents need to find alternative foods.

Autistic children who attend school may require personal care during those hours, Viti says.

Accessing 'respite' care

One of the provisions Ontario parents of autistic children may qualify for is Special Services at Home (SSAH), which parents can use to enrol their children in a skill-building program, like a supervised camp, or to give themselves a breather.

Pearce says she has used these funds for extracurricular and summer programs so that she could continue to operate the technical writing business she co-owns, and which employs four full-time staff.

"Even though they're technically for 'respite,' we've never used [these funds] for a break. We've used them so I could keep my job," says Pearce.

Leah Miltchin, whose teen son also has autism, hasn't been as lucky with funding.

Miltchin says her 18-year-old son Daniel is extremely bright intellectually, but emotionally, he "functions more like an eight-year old" and is prone to tantrums and other outbursts.

Although he is enrolled in the travel and tourism program at Toronto's Centennial College, Daniel's cognitive issues require him to take on a reduced workload.

A single mother with two other teenage children, Miltchin applied for SSAH funding several years ago but was rejected. Now that Daniel is 18, she says she's unlikely to try to get support through Developmental Services Ontario (DSO), a branch of the provincial government that finds funding and other supports for adults with developmental disabilities.

She says that Daniel's high-functioning ability and high IQ "would preclude him from receiving any services or funding."

The Ontario Ministry of Children and Youth Services was not available for comment.

Lost income

Miltchin works from home as a medical transcriptionist, but says the lack of so-called respite care has diminished her household revenue.

"I can't even work full-time because I have to be on standby on a moment's notice. Sometimes I have to go pick Daniel up from school if he's having a bad day or take him to appointments. I just have to be available, and that has really curtailed my income."

Part of the problem, says Viti from Autism Speaks, is that a lot of the costs involved in raising an autistic child, including the opportunity costs of lost employment, are hard to quantify.

"We are trying to do the quantification, the health economics, so we can make a stronger case for government intervention and support," says Viti.

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Amanda Knox: 'I haven't been allowed to grieve' for roommate

Amanda Knox, who spent nearly four years in an Italian prison after being convicted of murdering her British roommate, says she hopes the slain woman's parents read her book and give her permission to visit their daughter's grave.

"I haven't been allowed to grieve. I want so much to pay my respects to her, to her grave," said Knox, who has just released her book Waiting to be Heard: A Memoir by Amanda Knox. She spoke with Anna Maria Tremonti of CBC's The Current.

"I want permission from her family and that's the main reason why I really want them to read my book, and I know that they've said that they are not wanting to and I understand their grief," Knox said. "That's the main reason why I haven't put myself out there and walked up to their front door. I don't want to disturb that. I know that they are going through the worst thing."

"I just hope that they'll take me into consideration when they search for the truth about what happened," Knox told Tremonti.

Knox, who lives in Seattle where she is studying at the University of Washington, was acquitted on appeal in 2011 of the murder of Meredith Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student. But in March, Italy's highest criminal court ordered a new trial even though Knox cannot be forced to return for it.

Knox, 25, said she was shocked by the top court's verdict.

"The only way that I can describe it is to say that I felt like I had been crawling through a field of barbed wire this entire time but I found an end or at least what I thought was an end and it turned out to be only the horizon and I know it will be just as hard to crawl through the next part."

"To this day, I'm waiting to understand the motivation and that will greatly determine how I'm going to have to live the next years and what I'm going to have to face," she told Tremonti.

Doesn't blame Italian justice system

But Knox said she doesn't blame the Italian justice system for her ordeal, instead focusing on over zealous prosecutors.

"I was treated very specifically due to a prosecution, and it's the prosecution that must be made to answer for the way that I was treated. I still have faith in the Italian justice system. I am still there, I am still going through it."

Italian prosecutors have said Knox, who was an exchange student studying in Perugia, Italy, and her then boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito killed Kercher in a drug-fuelled sex assault involving a third man.

They maintained that the murder weapon was a large knife taken from Sollecito's house. Prosecutors said the knife matched the wounds on Kercher's body and had traces of Kercher's DNA on the blade and Knox's DNA on the handle.

Anna Maria Tremonti of CBC's The Current spoke with Amanda Knox about her book Waiting to be Heard: A Memoir by Amanda Knox. (CBC)

However, Knox's defenders said she was innocent and was forced to say things she didn't mean during a lengthy police interrogation. And they said bumbling Italian police contaminated the crime scene, producing flawed DNA evidence.

An Ivory Coast man, Rudy Guede, was convicted of the 2007 slaying in a separate proceeding and is serving a 16-year sentence. Knox and Sollecito were also initially convicted of the murder and given long prison sentences, but were then acquitted on appeal and released in 2011.

Some observers raised questions about Knox for her reaction following the death of her roommate, accusing Knox of being unfeeling and uncaring and more interested in her boyfriend.

"When I cried, I cried when I was alone," she said. "When I was in the police office I was trying to hold it together so I could answer questions. In the meantime, I was pacing, I was angry, I was swearing."

She said physical interaction that anyone may have seen between her and her boyfriend were just expressions of comfort, and that Sollecito had kissed her to show he was there for her.

"I reacted differently than the others and I reacted in a way that wasn't classically Italian, but I reacted to what happened and I was overwhelmed by the reality of the situation."

Police didn't accept answers

She said at one point, when she was interrogated by police, their demeanour became very aggressive, asking her the same questions and not accepting her answers.

"They told me I was wrong, they told me that I wasn't remembering correctly, that I had to tell them the truth. Over all those hours, I was called a liar. I was told I had amnesia, that I had seen who the murderer was, I had seen the murder."

She said she believed the prosecution pursued her because they "had a bad vibe" about her and they didn't want to let that go, despite evidence pointing to Guede.

"In my opinion, they were projecting their own ideas about female decadence upon me," Knox said. "I very much believe that they thought they knew who I was before they knew me. They never really gave me a chance. They decided to make me a character and they held onto that. And whether or not they believe it, I think they've convinced themselves of it and were unwilling to let go."

With files from The Associated Press

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Joe Fresh founder, Galen Weston address Bangladesh tragedy

The founder of Loblaw's discount clothing chain Joe Fresh, rocked by the factory collapse in Bangladesh that killed hundreds of people, today outlined his plan to work closely with local authorities to improve work conditions.

Galen G. Weston, executive chairman of Loblaw, and Joe Mimran, the fashion retailer who founded Loblaw's Joe Fresh line of discount fashions, addressed members of the media on Thursday to discuss the tragedy at a Bangladesh textile factory last week.

The facility supplied clothes for, among numerous other retailers, Joe Fresh.

"I'm very troubled," Weston told reporters. "I'm troubled by the deafening silence from other apparel retailers on this.

"Thirty companies were having goods manufactured, but only two have come forward to speak publicly," Weston said.

Weston said Loblaw has always ensured all facilities in its supply chain adhere to rigorous standards in areas including local labour laws and work conditions.

"Nothing in those reports suggested a problem, but the scope of the audits does not cover structural integrity," Weston said.

Weston said he was "troubled" by practices that saw it fit to send workers back into this building after it was declared dangerous.

Joe Fresh will stay in Bangladesh

Other international firms, such as Disney, have already announced intentions to withdraw from Bangladesh. But Mimran said Joe Fresh has no plans to do that, arguing more can be done to make the apparel industry "a force for good" in the world by working with local authorities to improve conditions.

"Properly inspected, well-built factories play an important role in countries like Bangladesh," Mimran said. "Recent events have shown we should be auditing for building standards, something that has never been done before."

Mimran pledged that any garment made for the Joe Fresh line will be built in a facility that respects local building codes, as well as labour laws.

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New BlackBerry Q10 lands in Toronto first

BlackBerry users hoping to get their hands on the latest version of the keyboard smartphone will have to wait a couple more days — if they live outside of Toronto.

The company (TSX:BB) says the release of the BlackBerry Q10 will begin first in the Greater Toronto Area on Wednesday, before it expands to the rest of Canada later in the week.

"The demand in Toronto is very, very strong, and we want to make sure we have enough supply," chief operating officer Kristian Tear told The Canadian Press.

"We start off by selling it in the Greater Toronto Area, then we expand the coverage and bring BlackBerry Q10 to all Canadians who are waiting for it throughout the country over the next couple of days."

The keyboard version of the smartphone is expected to be popular with business users, especially with bankers and traders on Bay Street. Many of those phones are purchased by businesses, or enterprise customers, who buy the devices in bulk for their employees.

The speed of the rollout for the BlackBerry Q10 phone in key markets around the world is about three times faster than the launch of the touchscreen model earlier this year, Tear said.

BlackBerry is expected to release the phone in the crucial U.S. market next month, though a date hasn't been announced.

The Q10 phone arrived in the U.K. over the weekend under an exclusive launch at department store Selfridges. The U.K. sales have exceeded the company's expectations, Tear said, though sales figures haven't been released.

Some analysts have recently observed that sales of the BlackBerry Z10 touchscreen phone have started to fall in some markets, and never really took off in the United States where it arrived in stores last month.

Shares of BlackBerry were ahead more than five per cent, or 82 cents, to $16.60 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

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'Exhausted' parents leave autistic son at government office

Unable to get enough help from social services, an Ottawa family says they had no choice but to leave their son — who is living with severe developmental delays — in the hands of the government.

Amanda Telford said she brought her 19-year-old son Phillip to a provincial developmental services office on Tuesday and left him there.

"It's the most heart-wrenching, gut-wrenching feeling in the world to have to do this," she told CBC News.

"I felt dizzy, nauseous, upset, I've spent a very teary-eyed day today; this hasn't been a very fun thing to have to do."

Functions at 2-year-old level

Telford said Phillip is living with a severe form of autism that has him functioning at a two-year-old level, Tourette's syndrome and insulin-dependent diabetes.

Amanda Telford says three incidents over the weekend made her realize she can't keep her son Philip safe any longer. (CBC)

He often wanders away and puts himself in danger, she said.

"[A few days ago], he ended up four kilometres away at a restaurant at Ogilvie [Road] and St. Laurent Boulevard," she said.

"Ogilvy and St. Laurent is an extremely dangerous intersection."

Phillip also swallowed 14 pills of high-blood pressure medication which required seven hours of hospitalization on Monday, Telford said.

After he got home, his mother said he wandered away again.

Politicians little help

Telford said she's asked for help from both provincial and Ottawa city agencies, as well as her local member of Parliament and member of the Ontario legislature.

She said the response has been there's no room for Phillip in the over-burdened, under-funded social system.

"My husband and I are absolutely exhausted and medically unwell," she said. "I am not able to do this anymore."

Autism Ontario caseworker Anne Borbey-Schwartz said the Telford's situation is not unique. There has been a rise in the number of developmentally delayed adults with autism.

"This family is very brave, first of all," Borbey-Schwartz said.

"(They) represent many families across the province, if not across the country, that are facing aging adults with autism, with a variety of needs, with very little support and very little services."

Telford told CBC Radio's Ottawa Morning host Hallie Cotnam her family has been getting "passport" funding from the province, but it's been frozen for eight years and now only lasts six to eight months of the year.

She said her son is getting medical and social care at a south Ottawa hospice, a place he's been on and off since he was 16 and somewhere she said he's "very happy."

His mother said it's a temporary solution she hopes will lead to a permanent placement.

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Search plane purchase delay causes Tory infighting

The military's failure to purchase new search and rescue planes has led to rare infighting between two federal Conservative cabinet ministers.

Auditor General Michael Ferguson, in his spring report released Tuesday, said the military's persistent failure to buy new search planes was a significant risk that affected the sustainability of Canada's rescue program.

Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose said it was important that government contracting rules be followed and that there be an open competition for new search planes. That's a push back against Defence Minister Peter MacKay and the suggestion Ambrose's department has failed to deliver.

Sources tell CBC News that Ambrose and public works officials are tired of being made out as the bad guys, when they believe it's clear the Defence Department has botched the process.

"Enough is enough," one source said.

MacKay stiffened at the suggestion that the Defence Department should be held accountable for failing to buy new search planes.

"Well, I would disagree that this has gone absolutely nowhere," MacKay said.

A rescue parcel is dropped out the back of a CC-115 Buffalo aircraft in Baring Bay, Nunavut, during search and rescue training in 2012. (Cpl. Jax Kennedy/Canadian Forces Combat Camera)

"The reality is, while the process is underway, it has not delivered the aircraft we need, and that our [search and rescue technicians] and our forces deserve," he said.

The program to purchase new search planes was launched in 2002 but the military has been unable to even get a tender out. It carried on for years but later stalled amid allegations the military was trying to rig the bid, in favour of a specific plane.

The military has spent years fighting that allegation and trying to deal with the consequences.

Last year, the program started moving again, under the strict control of a secretariat inside the Department of Public Works.

"It would appear that the aircraft will now reach the request for proposal stage within this calendar year," MacKay said.

This would mean a contract by 2015 — with possible delivery at 2017 — making it 15 years between the launch of the plane program, and the launch of an actual plane.

"Well, it hasn't been acceptable to me," Ambrose said about the process.

Asked if she was dissatisfied with the way the military has handled this, Ambrose paused and said: "I would say we have worked with the military to ensure this is done in an open, fair and competitive way."

With files from James Cudmore

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Peterborough hospital spotted chemo drug error on first day

A pharmacy assistant at a Peterborough, Ont., hospital discovered by accident that cancer drugs administered to 1,200 patients in two provinces were diluted.

Hospital officials say a red flag was raised when the assistant checked the labels on bags of the drug mixture provided by Marchese Hospital Solutions.

A pharmacy technician at Peterborough Regional Health Centre noticed a difference in chemotherapy labels between Marchese and a previous supplier the first day it was used at the hospital.

They say the assistant noticed that the label from Marchese was different from the ones on bags from their previous supplier, Baxter.

They say the Marchese label didn't include the concentration of the drug gemcitabine, but the Baxter labels did.

The officials say it was the first day the hospital was using the drug mixture from Marchese, which is why they still had some bags left from Baxter.

It's now known that there was too much saline in the bags containing cyclophosphamide and gemcitabine, in effect watering down the prescribed drug concentrations by up to 20 per cent.

Patients in five hospitals in Ontario and New Brunswick received watered down chemotherapy drugs purchased from Marchese, some for as long as a year.

The company said it prepared the drugs the way it was asked to under its contract and under the supervision of a licensed pharmacist.

But the drug mixture Marchese was producing was completely different from the one the hospitals thought they were buying, the committee heard.

Three staff members at the Peterborough hospital who discovered the problem wish to remain anonymous, officials said.

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Neil Macdonald: The secretive world of printing money

Consider this: As America agonizes and argues over the pain of government cuts totalling about $85 billion next year, the U.S. Federal Reserve is printing that much every month.

Its current balance sheet — the amount of money it has created, the bulk of it in the past five years — stands at $3.2 trillion, about twice Canada's entire annual economic output.

The European Central Bank's balance sheet is even higher at $3.45 trillion, and others, like Japan, are racing to catch up.

The world's central bankers are, in a sense, modern alchemists: They create these unimaginable sums of money out of binary electronic signals — to buy, among other things, government and retail bank debt and securities — with a few strokes of computer keys.

It's not an act they allow to be filmed or otherwise recorded. Actually, they permit very little recording of anything they do.

The plain fact is that these central bankers, Canada's Mark Carney among them, are executing what is perhaps the most profoundly important public policy of our time — an unprecedented printing of money and lowering of interest rates — with little in the way of public debate.

Such debate that is taking place is at rarefied levels among macroeconomists and other academics, or in the feverish blogs of the far right, whose members tend to see government conspiracy in just about everything.

But at least they're paying attention. Much of the mainstream media, fixated as it is on political horse races, is largely ignoring what's happening. There are honourable exceptions — economics specialists in certain newspapers and business-focused cable channels — but they are few.

The general public mostly hasn't a clue. Neither do many elected politicians, judging by some of the things they say publicly about the subject.

Hiding the bad news

What these bankers do with this new money they print is buy government debt, or shore up failing banks or teetering national economies or industries like housing or insurance, part of the policy they call quantitative easing.

They say, and many respectable experts support them, that quantitative easing has saved entire economies from imploding.

They also say — high priest-like — that they must keep the details of their discussions secret because their words could be misinterpreted, and entire markets could move on a misunderstanding.

And they stress they are operating entirely within the mandates given them by elected governments.

That's as may be.

It's also true the central bankers did not ask for the immense power they now exercise.

It was thrust upon them because the private sector made enormous, stupid, ruinous blunders, and because elected politicians were too terrified to make all the deeply unpopular decisions, like whether to let more banks fail, that had to be made when the financial meltdown started feeding on itself.

Politicians, given the chance, kick the can down the road; central bankers act.

Cash or gold? The age-old question, made perhaps more pressing in an age where cash can be created at a click of the computer keys. (Reuters)

But because of their mandate to maintain economic stability, they like to hide the bad news, or obscure it with vague euphemisms.

The transcripts of the U.S. Federal Reserve meetings make fascinating reading, even though they're only published five years after the decisions are made.

But the tone is a bit patronizing. Transparency and informing the public is clearly not high on the governors' agenda. They have drawn what one British financial regulator called a "veil of ignorance" around the subject of money printing.

"They see something coming, they may be right, they may be wrong. But they are bound not to tell the folks what they feel and see for fear that it will upset the system," says William Greider, an author and keen student of the U.S. Federal Reserve.

In Canada, Britain and Europe, central banks never release transcripts of internal discussions.

But while economists are divided on the wisdom of all this money printing, the central bankers aren't: They've marched together, to the same tune, since 2008, making a giant collective bet.

Don't tell the punters

Not since early last century, when the central bankers of Great Britain, Germany, France and Europe acted in concert to try to remediate the market crash of 1929, has such a radical policy been implemented on such a global basis.

Of course, those central bankers of yore did the exact opposite of quantitative easing. They actually tightened the money supply, and are generally blamed for having created the Great Depression.

That bit of history goes a long way to explain why today's central bankers are running the printing presses almost nonstop.

But there are huge implications for everyone in what's happening.

Some economists warn it will lead to inflation, or hyperinflation. So far, it hasn't because consumers, investors, and businesses, still nervous and wary, have sat on what cash they have, rather than embark on the sort of spending sprees the central banks are now trying to encourage.

But certainly all this QE has distorted asset prices, and pushed some stock markets to all-time highs.

It has also fuelled heavy borrowing and real estate bubbles in parts of the world. And it has punished people with savings, older people especially, by artificially depressing interest rates and the return on their money.

Should the money printing continue?

In the U.S., the far right sees the practice as a government conspiracy to destroy the money system.

Some days it feels like almost every second advertisement on Fox News these past few years has been for gold, supposedly the eternal hedge. Some crackpots are even planting survival gardens in anticipation of systemic failure.

The political left supports even more money printing, along the lines that Japan has recently embarked upon (a doubling over the next two years).

Among the suggestions: Lend directly to companies that need credit. Send free money to every household. Do whatever is needed to kick-start growth.

The fact is, it's impossible to know where all this is going, or whether the central banks, having addicted governments and consumers to cheap money, can close the money taps without enormous disruption to the system.

But it's something that screams for public discussion.

"It may be time for modern citizens to get educated about their own capitalism," says Greider, who says there is nothing democratically healthy about the bankers' opaque discussions and decisions on a scale like this.

Bank of Japan governor Haruhiko Kuroda said earlier this month that the bank won't stop printing yen until the Japanese inflation rate hits two per cent. (Toru Hanai/Reuters)

Lord Adair Turner, the outgoing chairman of Britain's now-defunct banking regulator (the Financial Services Authority), summed up the bankers' attitude in February in a speech at London's City University. (It was there he spoke of "the veil of ignorance" in which bankers like to shroud their handiwork.)

Considered a front-runner last year for the Bank of England's top job (the one that went to Mark Carney), Turner suggested that the times are so dire that the central bank should consider simply printing every pound the British government needed to borrow, effectively monetizing its deficits, a practice, he concedes, that is generally considered taboo.

The problem in doing that, said Turner, is telling the hoi-polloi.

"Once we tell the populace and the popular press and the backbenchers of Parliament that this is possible, they'll want to do it not only in the one year out of 100 when it's appropriate, and not only in a reasonable amount, but all the time and in excessive amounts to try and win the next election."

Turner is right, to an extent. Politicians can certainly be pusillanimous fools, and voters uninformed. It would be nice if they weren't, but it is ultimately their right.

Still, unelected officials that operate at the behest of governments have no business cloaking such profound decisions. Few topics deserve more attention.

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