One of NDP leader Jack Layton’s recurring themes in this election campaign has been Stephen Harper’s “$50-billion giveaway in corporate tax cuts“.

If there’s anything we have learned, it’s “It’s the economy, stupid”. But equally important is: “Keep it simple, stupid.”

When Layton speaks of cancelling the corporate tax cuts, Harper immediately counters that it would be insane to saddle companies with an extra $50 billion in the current economic climate. Maybe this take is overly simplistic, but I doubt that the reversal of the cuts would result in companies being slammed with $50 billion.

Here’s why:

No matter what the tax rate, companies have a variety of options and tricks to reduce their taxable income – more so than any personal income taxpayer, a lot more, in fact.
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Some 100 supporters greeted Ed Broadbent as he arrived at party headquarters from teaching his course on citizens and democracy at Queens University. Rick Downes, the Kingston and the Islands NDP candidate, introduced Broadbent. Downes said that Broadbent was the face of the NDP when he grew up. Broadbent said that the NDP has grown as it has attracted people from other parties. Even his own father, who was a Tory, saw the light in the 60s and joined the NDP.

The social and economic problems we face now, Broadbent said in a rousing speech, started with the Liberals. In 1993 they were facing deficits and, unlike Clinton who raised taxes on the most wealthy and did not cut programs, Chretien slashed the programs that have yet to recover, he said. He ran in 2000 because he saw the effects of what the Liberals had done. When revenues returned tax breaks for the wealthy were given, the debt was paid down, but there was no action on many fronts, especially health and the environment.

Even now 7000 people in Ottawa are waiting for affordable housing. There is no national housing strategy. Why should anyone vote Liberal now, he said. He supported Jack Layton as a candidate early on as he was aware of his activism in Toronto on the housing and environmental fronts: “Jack was there on the environment before the Greens”. Broadbent said targeted tax cuts are needed in combination with an industrial strategy. Simply cutting corporate taxes, as the Tories are doing, does not help the economy, he said. He pointed to sectors like forest products and automotive as needing to be targeted. In closing he said that the NDP has had the best record of fiscal management. One need only look at the provinces where there have been NDP governments.

Every Canadian is familiar with this bon mot: When America has the sniffles, Canada comes down with the flu. It does not take a stretch of the imagination to figure out what will happen to the Canadian economy now that America has suffered a massive stroke, which will see the patient in intensive care, in an induced coma, for a long time to come.

Compared to the mess that once used to be the United States of America, Canada is still doing relatively fine. But it is just a matter of time before the American consumers’ inability to shop will seriously eat into Canadian companies’ profits and viability. Most of Canada’s exports are destined for the U.S., yet when Americans no longer have the spending power to buy those products, the Canadian economy could take a major hit.

One of the worst problem areas in Canada is Ontario. Its manufacturing sector has been eroded, with thousands of jobs having been lost in the automotive sector in particular. The provincial government and labour unions have been calling on the federal government to provide the necessary funds to prop up the ailing sector, but any financial injection would be a short-term solution only. Ontario’s problems are more of a structural, than a cyclical, nature: an excessive tax burden, out-of-control government spending and programs that are way too generous by anyone’s standards – not to mention the fact that the automotive sector is not what it used to be, nor will it ever return to its old grandeur.
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Again, Stephen Harper, the trained economist, fails to understand the true meaning of tax cuts:

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper is targeting families – and hoping to assuage the angered arts community – by promising a new tax credit for childhood arts programs. [...] It would be similar to the $500 Children’s Fitness Tax Credit his party introduced after the last election for children who participate in sports.

That doesn’t mean that families will find an extra $500 in their pockets:

Tax experts said a $500 tax credit on arts activity fees would likely translate into a maximum $75 for families.

In other words, this “tax break” is pure baloney. Canadians, who lose 45% of their hard-earned income to taxes, don’t need targeted tax credits, but major tax cuts across the board and, ideally, a switch to a flat tax of no more than 15% at the very most.

More volubile in the US than back home, Harper talks to bloomberg news about the U.S. crisis to say something funny for the king of corporate tax cuts :

“Harper said one factor behind the U.S. crisis is “over-deregulation” and regulators that often are grasping to play “catch-up” with increasingly complex financial instruments. There is also an “inherent bias” in the U.S. tax code that gives homeowners incentives to take on too much debt, he said.”

 You can see that I did not put the words out of their context as I could have been temted to do.  Nevertheless, I think this is munition for Jack Harper if he takes time to read that article.

 Leaving the market to himself has nasty consequences.  Canadian Household assets are much safer with a government thats tames the markets so they don’t make foolish mistakes and hand out sickning bonuses to their CEOs.

Michael Byers, (NDP Candidate – Vancouver Center), very passionately told an audience today the tar sands should be shut down. It is not the official position of the NDP, who want a moratorium on the pace of the tar sands development, pending studies on the environment.

However, there are many voices in this country, sending distress signals using the internet, that want the tar sands development to stop, yes stop, now, because it has become “the dirtiest oil on the planet”.

If one pauses before thinking the thought “that no matter what the cost, the world needs oil and Canada needs to be richer in the world”, then maybe it is possible to think about the kind of planet this will be if we ruin it for our children and theirs.

Surely if humans survived on this planet in previous centuries and millenia without such a huge dependence on oil, we can figure out a way to do it again before it is too late…

With the US experiencing a debt hangover, when are we going to hear about the biggest risk to our prosperity: the federal debt of $460 Billion.

It is likely that interest rates will rise as credit markets tighten further and inflation increases. A 2% rise in rates will cause debt servicing to rise $9 Billion, or to $38 Billion, eliminating the surplus. Everyone is on the spending bandwagon, I want to hear what the plan is to repay the debt?

Last night was the first all-candidates debate of this election in St. Catharines airing on Cogeco cabel TV.

Probably the biggest shock that came out of the debate was Rick Dykstra, after being grilled about his party’s decision to raise taxes on income trusts, admitting that his party broke it’s promise not to tax income trusts and apologizing for adding taxes to income trusts after promising not to.

“We made a commitment. We didn’t keep that commitment, and for that I apologize to the people of St. Catharines who were impacted by that decision.” (Federal Election Candidates Debate, Cogeco, September 23, 2008)

This is the first real sign that Rick Dykstra is trying to run away from the record of his party. As Jim Flaherty, Stephen Harper and the Conservatives have been completely unapologetic about flip-flopping on income trusts.

This morning I had the opportunity to talk for a few minutes to the Conservative candidate in the riding of St-Laurent-Cartierville.  Dennis Galiatsatos, told me that he has been going door to door in the riding and the issue which seems to be the most important is “taxes”.  

Let’s face it, we all hate “taxes”.  I said to the candidate,  “But taxes go hand-in-hand with services and people are also complaining about service cuts.”

The candidate replied to me, that he is totally aware of how voters seem to want their bread buttered on both sides….

I am asking, now, how it is we can have the kind of population who do not understand the relationship between taxes and services.   Afterall,  personal  income tax has come down since 2004 and Canada’s budgetary surplus.  But everyone complains about underfunding in so many areas!  Although complaints are especially about our most expensive program, Healthcare, (which the average US citizen has to pay a minimun of $500 per month for from their own take home pay), complaints about so many other issues which are often governed by provinces, cities and municipalities are also made.    Oh yes, and gasoline taxes!  Whose responsibility is that?

I look at the very privatized and unregulated US economy now and think, “Here is one of the most powerful countries in the world.  And now, with a laissez-faire approach to their economy, is now finding themselves facing bankruptcy. 

To close,  I would rather pay my share of taxes and have services I need in a somewhat regulated economy.  I also want to see monitoring of some of the most important resources we have to keep us afloat as an independant, parliamentary democracy.  That is also why I support and will continue to support the New Democratic Party.

  Voters in ridings as far away as B.C. and Ontario have apparently been getting flyers signed by our incumbent Peace River MP Chris Warkentin.  Why is our northern Alberta MP spamming voters in other ridings?  According to Garth Turner’s blogsite: “I just received a Conservative flyer…I’m for banning dangerous chemicals from baby bottles, and cracking down on manufacturers and importers of dangerous products…so I don’t object to the message…Anyway, the flyer says ‘compliments of Chris Warkentin, MP’ who is the MP for Peace River….a bit of a distance from Waterloo Region, wouldn’t you say?  Why isn’t it from my local MP?  Oh, I know, my local MP is a Liberal.”    And from the NDP-held B.C. riding of Skeena-Bulkey Valley: “Skeena-Bulkley Valley must be a hot riding…got already 6 pieces of propaganda…Inky Mark, Jay Hill, and Chris Warkentin.”  This is happening all over Canada, and involves many different Conservative MPs. The flyers are known as ten-percenters, due to the fact that federal MPs are allowed to send flyers to any riding in Canada, as long as they are not sent to more than 10 per cent of the households in that riding.   However, it IS taxpayers’ money that is being used to mail out the flyers.  The Conservatives seem to be abusing the privilege of having access to the money to send the flyers as part of a concerted strategy to sway voters in ridings that don’t already have an incumbent Conservative MP. And that may well be against the rules.  The flyers are clearly about the election, since they depict an election ballot with the names of four federal party leaders and an arrow pointing to Prime Minister Harper.  But according to rules distributed to every MP by the office of the Speaker of the House, such flyers may not contain “provincial, municipal or local election campaign material”, and they can’t request “re-election support”. NDP MP Pat Martin launched a complaint about the flyers prior to the election, saying they are “way over the line”. The Liberals have also been complaining. The strategy certainly isn’t winning any prizes from voters in the affected ridings.  A handful of voters in Ontario were upset enough to found a new Facebook group in Warkentin’s name just to complain, and New Brunswick Conservative MP Mike Allen has already had to defend himself to the CBC.   Meanwhile, voters in the Peace should be asking if Warkentin even knows about the flyers.  If he does, then isn’t he taking his own riding for granted and focusing more on swaying other ridings, and possibly breaking election rules to boot?  And if doesn’t, then isn’t the Conservative party being misleading by sending the flyers in his name?   

Just out in time for this election and available FREE online, The Harper Record, edited by my trusted friend Teresa Healy.

Here’s the summary from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives:

This book is one in a series of CCPA publications that have examined the records of Canadian federal governments during the duration of their tenure. As with earlier CCPA reports on the activities of previous governments while in office, this book gives a detailed account of the laws, policies, regulations, and initiatives of the Conservative minority government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper during its 32-month term from January 2006 to September 2008.

The 47 writers, researchers and analysts who have co-written this book probe into every aspect of the Harper minority government’s administration. From the economy to the environment, from social programs to foreign policy, from health care to tax cuts, from the Afghanistan mission to the tar sands, from free trade to deep integration, and to many other areas of this government’s record, the authors have dug out the facts and analyzed them.

The Harper Record was necessarily researched and written long before an election was called, but its publication does coincide with an election campaign and thus may help citizens to make informed choices about the future of their country. Regardless of the election outcome, its contents will continue to be relevant between elections. In detailing what a minority Conservative government really did, or failed to do, it may serve as a guide and model for future elections.

So the Liberals who “slayed the deficit monster” in the 1990’s are now making a whole bunch of spending promises, apparently greater than those of any other party. Yet they accuse the Conservatives of having moved Canada into a deficit. So if we are in deficit now, where is the money going to come from for all this new spending? Do the Liberals stand for balanced budgets or not? Didn’t Paul Martin lose the last election (in part) by making all sorts of promises that people knew he could never keep? No wonder voters are supporting the Greens and NDP who are consistent in their policy and spending announcements.

Some people tend to rely on government for everything. Surely, some of them would like to be dressed and fed in the morning by government as well. It would be nice if we all had a benevolent government to watch over us and wait on us hand and foot. Only trouble is that we would have to hand over our hard-earned cash in taxes to make that happen – and even then it would not be nearly enough.

Government in Canada has grown way too big, particularly since Pierre Trudeau. The lesson that must be imparted now is that government must learn to do more with a lot less, to become leaner and meaner. The old Trudeau-style, utopian and socialist fantasies are nothing more than fantasies in today’s world. Anyone still clinging to those ideas should be examined, because he just might be a candidate for a padded cell, heavy psychopharmaceutical treatment and round-the-clock observation.

Various successive Liberal governments have done a lot of damage to Canada in this respect. Most of the problems we grapple with today are the direct results of a “Liberal legacy”. To put it more bluntly, this type of Big Government thinking has taken on the form of a disease that has infected even some Conservatives, such as Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his finance minister Jim Flaherty. Their government spending in the last two and a half years has set a new record and even exceeded any of the previous Liberal governments in recent history.
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Hear, hear. These are the words of Jayson Myers, an economist and head of Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters:

“What are we doing,” he asked, “to actually create wealth in this country rather than just redistribute it?”

Nothing. Like any socialist/communist country, Canada, at least in my lifetime, and particularly since the days of Trudeau, has done absolutely nothing to let people build their own personal wealth, or even a decent nest egg.

In this country today, the average household spends more on taxes than on anything else. Taxes make up at least 45% of a household’s expenses today, and if you are unfortunate enough to live in the high-tax jurisdictions of Ontario, Québec or British Columbia, you will end up paying even more. It goes without saying that this puts people’s ability to buy the bare necessities of life (food, clothing, shelter) in serious jeopardy.

Looking at the election promises made by the Conservatives and Liberals, one thing is clear: there won’t be any across-the-board cuts to personal income taxes, the very thing that would be needed to improve people’s lives and productivity.

Take the Conservative platform, for example (emphasis added):

ON TAXATION: Lower business taxes help give Canada a global edge; all taxes should drop relentlessly; cuts should be small and targeted, with specific policy aims.

This is not how you do it. Those small and targeted cuts, the kind we have seen in the last two and a half years, do absolutely nothing to achieve the goal of improved prosperity for working and middle-class families.

Also, the self-employed in Canada, a growing segment of Canada’s economy, are bled dry by Revenue Canada to the point where many subsist at near-poverty levels.

A country like Canada that wants to call itself progressive and advanced cannot allow such a Neanderthal tax system to continue. Canada is not what it was thirty, forty or fifty years ago. Today, with over 80% of Canadians living in cities (Toronto, Montréal, Calgary, Vancouver), and city life being extremely expensive, families cannot survive on $30,000 or even $60,000 a year when tax authorities equalize (in communist fashion) everyone down to $20,000 to $30,000. As a result, people are also less productive, especially the self-employed, because when you’re about to make extra income that would push your tax liability even higher, thus actually costing you money, you will refuse to accept extra work in order to avoid paying even higher taxes.

A household earning $60,000 a year is not rich; it’s not even middle class once Revenue Canada has taken (stolen is more like it) about $30,000 of that money and brought the household down to a near-poverty level.

Ideally, we would implement a flat tax, like the one proposed by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Or, as I suggested recently: Leave incomes up to around $25,000 untaxed and drop the entire bottom tax bracket (15%) and reduce the brackets more substantially (to 20% from 22%, and to 22% from 26%).

Unless the tax system is reformed in this way, Canada will never be able to solve its issues with the three P’s: productivity, prosperity and poverty.

I like Dion’s promise of a $10,000 tax credit to help people retrofit their homes. Credits are the right way to go because people are responsible for the decision and paying for it. I hate this idea of providing $800 million for immigration. Why should we pay for immigrants to learn English or French? Let them learn or pay just like earlier immigrants to Canada did.

Not clear on Layton’s plan to introduce new laws requiring full disclosure on bank fess, cellphones, etc.. Seems like these exist. Make one change: no more small print, all terms and conditions must be written same size as application. Then let companies explain why a cellphone contract is 27 pages long. As for $8.2 billion for green job creation, this is just another big government spending boondoggle waiting to happen.

Why is Harper so negative? He should stick to policy not personalities, and put the backroom boys on a leash, or better still fire them. We don’t need this negative American style politics here. His idea about paying veteran’s allowance to veterans from foreign countries is bizarre. Let’s take care of our own and let others deal with theirs.

If Duceppe wants to open the constitution, then let him agree to put everything on the table ie. equalization, parliamentary reform to achieve rep by pop, internal free trade. etc.. He can’t make promises because he will never excercise power.

Is May’s green shift shiftier than Dion’s? Does anyone really believe (I mean really) that the carbon tax will be revenue neutral? I think BC residents can answer that. Maybe if I had specifics to work with instead of generalities I would understand this. Won’t high energy prices alone change behavior? Oh, and how quickly are we expected to replace our gas guzzling cars and airplanes, coal fired power plants, oil heated homes, etc.? Next year, 5 years, 10 years? Won’t this simply trigger an enormous economic dislocation for Canadians who are least able to adapt, those lower on the economic scale?

I find the Federal Conservative commercial saying Stéphane Dion is going to take away the the oh so generous 1200 dollars a year child care benefit for children misleading and offensive.

What Harper does not say in his attack adds:

1. The child care benefit is only good if you have children under six years old.

2. It only equals 100 a month which really doesn’t amount to much and that’s if you have a child under six.

3. Harper canceled 125,000 child care spaces and broke promises for creating 25,000 new spaces.

4. The Harper attack adds are misinformation because the Liberals are keeping the cheques. Stéphane Dion has repeatedly said that he will not eliminate the $1,200 child care benefit.

My younger sister is a single mom who has to support herself and three small children who are ages seven to ten. Harper’s child care benefit is absolutely no good to her and offers no relief to her and her children.

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I took in some NDP free pizza and an information session at the UofR campus on Friday September 12, at noon. In attendance were 3 federal NDP candidate including Stephen Moore who is contesting the riding I live in — Wascana (Regina south east corner). Of course, Ralph Goodale has long held onto this riding, and will no doubt be the favourite. I spoke with Stephen briefly as we bumped into each other walking to work, and I asked him, “I hear you’ve got a shot this election?” to which he replied something to the effect that he’ll be working hard to win it.

I found it interesting that there were about as many provincial NDP MLAs and nominees there as there were federal nominees. The questions covered mostly education and poverty, with touches upon agricultural input costs which are skyrocketing with few profit returns on the same scale. Here’s a YouTube vide of McCall:

Former Education minister Warren McCall made a good point (I thought) about the voters in the province apparently rewarding Stephen Harper with votes despite a broken $800 Million equalization promise for which McCall’s government launched a (now canceled) court challenge over. He seemed incredulous that voters would choose to do that, and I admit I feel the same way. It certainly feels like the Conservatives knew they could take Saskatchewan’s seats for granted, so they could spend our promised equalization money elsewhere, to curry favour in battlegrounds like Quebec.

The NDP candidates promised to increase corporate taxes, and decrease taxes on the average Canadian person. They also stressed a desire to ensure small farms can compete in the world market without intimidation from Cargill or any large corporation they view as bullying the Canadian Wheat Board into non-existence. There was criticism for Harper’s attacks on the Wheat Board, which they called “illegal”.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s latest attack on the Liberal Green Shift plan:

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper says the proposed Liberal carbon tax would plunge Canada into a catastrophic recession and reignite the battles over national unity.

In a way he is right in his analysis, but in another he is also wrong.

The Green Shift plan in its current form, as thought up by Stéphane Dion, is not a workable solution in my view. It might work if Canada were a different country, perhaps.

A carbon tax is not necessarily a bad thing, but such a consumption tax, and that’s what it is, can be implemented only where taxes don’t already gobble up at least 45% of households’ income.

It would actually be a great thing if the system underwent a major shift, from income to consumption taxation. Most economists agree that income taxes are highly unfair and that consumption taxes should be used instead to fill the government’s coffers.

The Green Shift plan should be discarded for now. It does not benefit the environment and is nothing more than the same old wealth redistribution scheme that is so typical of the far left.

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