Commentary The Canadian federal budget arrived with the usual thud. It seems they just can’t help themselves. A number of commentators have already complained that instead of a brief, dry, factual explanation of the current government balance sheet and the ministry’s unrealistic expectations for it, it contains hundreds of pages of soothing bumf about good intentions and projections whose relevance is as suspect as their accuracy. Which has been the case for decades because everything is now a campaign speech. So let me quickly endorse that complaint, then move on. Specifically, to having laughed out loud at an April 11 National Post headline, “Budget’s health transfers disappoint provinces.” I know we’re meant to recycle paper but not this way. And I laughed even harder when that story revealed not only that the feds no longer bother giving their provincial counterparts budget briefings beforehand, but that the chair of the Council …