OTTAWA - The Canadian Taxpayers Federation says the Harper government's pre-election spending is out of this world.
The group says the Conservatives have doled out a whopping $8.8 billion since June - including a $2,000 grant to commemorate a UFO sighting.
Federation director John Williamson says there have been almost 300 pre-election commitments, adding up to about $94 million a day, or almost $4 million every hour.
Williamson says the spending binge is exactly the kind of pre-election splurge Prime Minister Stephen Harper criticized the Liberals for in the run-up to the 2006 federal election.
Among the big-ticket Tory commitments: $1.1 billion for a so-called "road map for linguistic duality;" $350,000 for an ice cream company in Prince Edward Island; and $297,000 for a ski club in Newfoundland.
Canada's faltering economy seems likely to be a dominant issue in a federal election campaign that's to begin Sunday, and Williamson says Ottawa should be showing the same spending restraint as Canadian families.
