GST on poppies

I was doing the recycling when I noticed a newspaper editorial (that appeared back in November throughout the Sun Newspaper chain) by Kalvin Reid entitled, Tax on Poppies is Pure Poppycock.

Welland NDP MP Malcolm Allen introduced a private member's bill to eliminate GST on poppies and the conservative newspaper chain's columnist urged readers to lobby their MPs to support this bill.

This is all very strange to me.

We wear poppies to honour and remember those who sacrificed for Canada, and yet we are so unhappy to pay taxes to support our country, that we are willing to go to considerable expense to introduce legislation and then create an exemption for poppies?!

I say that I'm happy to wear a poppy and find it particularly appropriate to pay a tax on poppies to fund my government. I'll put in a little extra into the Royal Canadian Legion's box next time.

Can taxes be too high? Sure, but the problem is in how efficiently or effectively they are spent, not in the fact that we pay them in the first place.

And most ironic of all? That an NDP member of parliament would be the one to introduce such a bill. NDP?! Hey, NDP, it's like when folks complain about how union dues are too high! You of all political parties should know that if people do complain about high union dues, they need to be reminded about the struggles and sacrifices so many people have made in the past just so that they could have unions.

The Economy: Stephen Harper has cast away any intellectual anchor

One claim that Stephen Harper is making on the campaign trail is that he has, "the 'sensible balance' to handle uncertain economic times", according to the CBC.

On the contrary, I would say that Mr. Harper cannot be trusted to be a good manager for the economy because he has cast away any intellectual anchor in that field.

This should have been obvious in his desire to cut the GST (a consumption tax) in the face of the overwhelming opinion of economists that cutting income tax would be better at stimulating productivity and growth. More recently, Mr. Harper also over-ruled his Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty, (who, wisely, is [was] wary of the government choosing investments and trying to pick winners and lowers, a sentiment I seem to remember that is shared by former Saskatchewan NDP Finance Minister, Janice McKinnon) to dangle an election goodie - $80M for a Ford Motor Co. plant.

But what I want to mention today is that Mr. Harper has even cut his intellectual links with free market titans like Milton Friedman. Friedman said, "The legitimate role for government is, in so far as it can, to control and check negative externalities." Polluting for free, greenhouse gas emissions in particular, is a perfect example of a very serious negative externality that threatens the planet. On this, Friedman continues with, "...government should be involved by setting a fee on the activity concerned. And that is something else that has increasingly developed. You have markets now in pollution abatement."

Now, what did Mr. Harper have to say about Stephane Dion's Green Shift? He simply dismissed the Green Shift (after misrepresenting it by reducing it to a carbon tax) by saying that it would, "screw everybody across the country", in complete opposition to almost all economists, even ones that might be considered libertarian, right-wing, or conservative.

Where is Mr. Harper's intellectual anchor when he's thinking about the economy? What are his terms of reference? Perhaps he's just out to get votes? What else could there be? If economic times are uncertain, a guy like Stephen Harper is not a good person to rely on for sound management of the economy.