Government Inaction?

OTTAWA–Liberal research suggests only 12 per cent of the $4 billion set aside for immediate job-creating infrastructure projects has actually flowed so far – a far cry from the Harper government's claim that 80 per cent of its economic stimulus plan is being implemented.

[...]

Liberals were able to directly contact people involved in 946 of those projects. Of those, he said they found construction has actually started on only 224 projects.

Extrapolating those results over the other projects they weren't able to contact, Kennedy said they concluded that only 12 per cent of the $4 billion fund has flowed.

As I wrote yesterday, there are all sorts of legitimate reasons that projects might be delayed. It takes time to spend money, after all. But of course lying about how much of the money has been spent is a different thing entirely.

And I don't understand the government's reasoning here:

The average Conservative riding got 13 times as much money as the average opposition riding in British Columbia, 2.7 times as much in Quebec. In Ontario, Conservative ridings got 11 per cent more than opposition ridings.

After all, in a minority government situation, this necessarily means that most of the money is going to under 50% of the ridings, and furthermore, going to ridings the Tories already have locked up.

Aren't you supposed to bribe the people who wouldn't otherwise vote for you?