Exclusive offer! Vacation paradise! Liberal Holiday Tours presents an exclusive getaway package at any one of Atlantic Canada's taxpayer-subsidized resorts. There are dozens of vacations to choose from, all subsidized to the tune of $50 million.

No, this is not an ad. It's an accurate description of the latest bit of larceny perpetrated by the feds.

For up to $500 a night, you can enjoy ritzy accommodations recently upgraded courtesy of the federal government's Human Resources Development Fund (HRDC) and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA). The deluxe suites feature taxpayer-financed Jacuzzis, saunas, fireplaces, fitness equipment, and entertainment consoles.

Or practice your swing at any of the accompanying elite golf courses that also received millions in generous HRDC and ACOA handouts.

One of the highlights on the Atlantic Canada subsidy tour is the Rodd Hotel and Resorts. Taxpayers spared no expense on this chain. Rodd was awarded $2 million to build two luxury hotels and another $500,000 low-interest loan to complete a golf resort and conference centre in P.E.I.

Book now with Liberal Vacation Tours for your East Coast vacation. After all you already paid for it in taxes.

Just days before the Auditor General let loose on the federal government for mismanaging $1 billion worth of HRDC job-creation programs, more skullduggery appears in the pages of the Ottawa Citizen. A story revealed that truckloads of taxpayer dollars from HRDC and ACOA were unloaded at the gates of luxurious resorts, elite golf courses and yacht clubs, mostly in Atlantic Canada.

This is country-club welfare at its worst and it borders on criminal. With the endless demands for government funding - many of them legitimate - tax dollars should never find their way into private tourism ventures that often provide only seasonal low-wage jobs. It's a waste of money collected from struggling families who cannot afford to subsidize rich tourists, however worthy Ottawa might consider the cause.

Of course Ottawa cannot afford to make any deeper tax cuts or sustain health care and education funding. They're too busy shoveling your money into posh country clubs for the elite.

The Chretien government should be ashamed of taking taxes from the poorest people in the rich provinces and transferring it to the richest people in the poor provinces. But this is what is to be expected from a labyrinth of federal income redistribution programs that have next to no measure of transparency or accountability.

A few days of bad publicity from the Auditor General on failed subsidy programs will not be enough to satisfy Canadians that their tax dollars are wisely spent and under competent stewardship. If there was ever a reason why limits should be put on government spending, this is it.

The Liberals will have feathered their nest in Atlantic Canada, enough perhaps to shore up political support that evaporated in the last election.

The feds will undoubtedly trot out the plight of the have-not-provinces to foil any criticism of wasteful spending. But federal income redistribution cannot disguise the fact that country club welfare is still rotten and corrupt politics.