The Leona Helmsleys of this world, reign supreme in Canada

Nothing wrong with the rich...it’s just the abusive rich we don’t need. Gwyn Morgan, Dominic D’Alessandro and Paul Desmarais Jr
are Canada’s answer to Leona Helmsley. They need to learn how to make an honest buck and compete like the rest of us rather than being coddled by bespoke tax policies from compliant governments who don’t know up from down or right from wrong, all designed to destroy these folks’ competition so that they can “compete” at the expense of our country’s competitiveness.

This is euphemistically referred to by Harper and Flaherty as "leveling the playing field".

The problem however, is that rather than stemming alleged tax leakage, this brand of Tax Fairness is actually inducing tax leakage in epic proportions known as Harper Valdez . It really doesn't get dumber than that. A policy outcome which is 180 degrees off course from the stated goal. Perhaps the government should have actually attempted to proved the existence of tax leakage before it sought to deal with the alleged problem.

Meanwhile why are employee stock option gains taxed at half the rate of the employment income that they most clearly represent?

Stock options do not represent capital at risk and therefore should not be taxable as capital gains which accrues from capital that is at risk. This is just another bespoke tax policy for the uber rich. I don’t know of too many stocks, in fact I know of none, that are able to be repriced or back dated, as is the case with risk free employee stock options.

On the larger issue if reining in the rich and powerful during Election 2008, I think Diane Francis is on to something:

Elections 2008: rein in rich
Posted: January 14, 2008, 7:06 AM by Diane Francis