Every government must from time to time adopt policies solely to obtain or maintain power. Pandering to voters is part of the game.

So while I oppose the Conservatives' recent orgy of "green" spending - a total of nearly $1.5-billion in the last month to Toronto's public transit, Alberta's carbon sequestration pipelines and British Columbia's greenhouse-gas emission-reduction strategy - I can see the political necessity of it. Voters were proclaiming themselves eco-friendly and questioning the Conservatives' commitment to the environment. So the government felt compelled to do enough to appease the public's vague disquiet over global warming and pollution.

But another strategy was possible: Educate Canadians. The science against the global warming theory is plentiful, strong and easily explicable. Rather than running about the country showering tax money on dubious green projects, the Conservatives could have shown voters that there is far more disagreement among scientists on global warming than the United Nations and environmentalists will admit.

But education takes time, which the Tories judged they didn't have. So instead they bought a first-class ticket on the green bandwagon.

Less understandable was the announcement last week that today's budget would restore some of the day care money once promised to the provinces by the Liberals but cut by the Tories on their first day in office.

The Liberals had pledged $1-billion a year for five years so that provinces could fund more day care spaces. It was wasted money. There is little evidence of unmet demand for more day care spaces. Only about 20% of Canadian children are in formal day care, and nearly half of those are in Quebec (where the provincial figure is 44%). Outside Quebec, there are few provinces where more than one child in seven goes to day care.

Day care use rises as subsidies rise, but that merely proves the economists' old adage: If you want more of something, subsidize it.

I suppose to prove to working moms and dads that they care about families, the Conservatives felt they had to ante up something - $250-million a year to the provinces starting April 1, rather than the $1-billion promised by the Liberals.

But this is on top of the $2-billion they are spending each year sending $100 cheques every month to parents with children under six. So the Tories are actually spending more than double what the Grits were. (Thankfully, though, 90% of it is going directly to parents. The Liberals' money was going 100% to other governments.)

But what is completely baffling, from both a political and ideological perspective, was last week's announcement by Heritage Minister Bev Oda that the Conservatives would restore the $5-million they had cut from Status of Women Canada (SoW).

There is nothing for them in pulling off this reversal. Indeed, it amounts to rearming those who would cut their throats.

There was a predictable outrage from the Liberals, NDP and Bloc in the House of Commons last year when the So W cuts were announced. There were a few purple-rage editorials and some formulaic press releases from radical women's advocacy groups. But there was no uprising among ordinary Canadian women, no evidence whatever that voters were moved to see the Tories as heartless gender Neanderthals as a result of the cuts.

The same incestuous cult of left-liberal elitists were all running about telling one another the cuts were proof of a hidden social conservative agenda, but there was no evidence anyone but themselves was listening.

The Public Service Alliance of Canada, B.C. branch, tried to organize a protest against the cuts in Vancouver just two weeks ago, but attracted pathetic attendance.

There was no political downside for the Tories. Nor was there a policy downside. Radical feminist will oppose Tory policies no matter who is funding them. Since they have no broad based fundraising ability, the cuts had rendered them nearly lifeless. Now, for inexplicable reasons, the Tories have breathed new life into these organizations.

The Tories will claim that they have forbidden any of the new money going to "advocacy groups," and that this will prevent the radicals from taking over the agenda again. But if that proves true, then the question is: Why spend the money at all?

It's not as if non-advocacy women's groups were clambering for taxpayers' funds. This is completely pointless spending, and, this, discouragingly un-conservative.