On Cronies…
We all know that Stephen Harper only appoints hard-nosed, staunch Conservative cronies and bagmen like, uh, Gary Doer.
Wha?
Gary Doer, the former NDP Premier of Manitoba, as Canada’s most important and most influential diplomat?
Oh, the headaches the Liberals and their media elite buddies must have today!
Could it be … maybe, just maybe … that Harper appointed those nine Senators because he could trust them to make the reforms necessary to make the institution of the Senate worth saving, and not because of some control-freak, frothy-mouthed, wild-eyed moment of partisan thrashing and thrusting?
Well, certainly not if you believe the Liberals and their media pals.
Who’s running the party now?
Reflections on the Senate Appointments
Harper has appointed Doug Finley and Don Plett to the Senate. Having met both men on a few occasions, I congratulate the Prime Minister on excellent choices. Both are very intelligent, hard-working, love their country, and, as the media has kindly pointed out, they are firmly on Harper’s side.
This whole exercise (appointing Senators in order to reform the Senate) wouldn’t be necessary if politics worked logically – let’s face it, it’s a pathetic eyesore of an institution in a great democracy like Canada.
However, the Liberals have a vested interest in it, and the NDP and Bloc just want to see it ditched, not reformed.
The Question Now
Who will be the new Party President?
More importantly, who will run the next campaign, and take the reins where Finley has left off?
The media obviously doesn’t care about this, but I am quite interested.
Jacques Demers
Is anyone else disgusted by the drivel appearing on some of the news sites putting down Jacques Demers for his illiteracy?
If these people had any idea of the back story of this amazing man, they might be inclined to reflect on how pathetic their own life story is, despite their literacy, in comparison (or, maybe they’ll just go back to watching American Idol).
Harmonized Sales Tax
The quietest massive policy shift in British Columbia (and Ontario) is underway.
The Harmonized Sales Tax seeks to make tax collecting more efficient by combining the policies for the Federal GST with that of the Provincial Sales Tax (PST) in target jurisdictions. The unfortunate side-effect the B.C. Government has already admitted to is that sales taxes for consumers will go up.
Here are a few other things that they won’t want to talk about:
It’s A Regressive Tax
The obvious one is that, unlike income taxes, sales taxes are “regressive”. That is, the poorer you are, the more costly this tax is to you as a percentage of your income vs. richer Canadians. The reason is that poorer people spend a higher proportion of their income on consuming the very things that the HST will be charged on (richer Canadians have more money to put toward things that do not have a standard sales tax structure: investments, travel abroad, rents and mortgages, education, etc.).
There are good arguments for flat taxes (everyone gets taxed evenly), and good arguments for progressive taxes (the richer pay a higher percentage of their income), but I have yet to hear a good argument for “regressive” taxation. This said, the BC Liberals seem to love them. The highly regressive Medical Services Plan Premium was effectively doubled for most middle-class British Columbians under Gordon Campbell back in 2002; the closer these middle-class British Columbians were to being classified as “poor”, the higher the rate (as a percentage of income).
Bad For Business
Businesses that had to only charge GST previously become less competitive now. There are numerous examples out there, but I’ll offer one more that I am quite familiar with: e-Commerce Services.
This industry only had to charge GST since the very beginning. All this will change next July.
They already compete with GST-free Alberta, not to mention other countries, like National Sales Tax-free America. But this latest move will make B.C. and Ontario-based e-Commerce Services companies even more uncompetitive.
To date, HST has been a non-issue, as Atlantic Canada is hardly a hotbed of e-Commerce. With their long history of HST, setting up a company there would have been a foolish undertaking.
With British Columbia and Ontario joining the HST mix, you can expect to see an exodus of e-Commerce firms, and they will all be heading to Alberta. I have heard this first hand from quite a number of my own competitors in both B.C. and Alberta (of course, nobody will go “on the record”).
An End To Progressive Tax Policy
The BC NDP has pointed out that the provincial government will lose the ability to use the PST to promote green (or any other) policies.
An Election Lie
The BC Liberals were on record as saying that they were not going to implement HST. This message was very clearly laid out prior to, and during the election campaign. Obviously they lied.
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