The Harper candidate from Quadra was interviewed over the weekend by CPAC and was asked whether there were any issues that constituents in Quadra were concerned about, more so than others, as follows:
CPAC reporter: “Is there anything that the [Harper] government has done to hurt you?”
“Welllll.....I think there are a lot of people unhappy about the way the income trusts were treated” Harper Candidate Deborah Meredith
Here were the results of that byelection. And to think, Harper overruled the BoC Board to appoint income trust fraud artist Mark Carney as Governor of the Bank of Canada. Proof of fraud? Read the ways and means motion as a start. Or this account of past misdemeanors.
Meanwhile, here's the number that Mark Carney did on Quadra's byelection results"
Conservative Deborah Meredith 7,283
Liberal Joyce Murray 8,141
Swing factor: 429 voters who would have perhaps otherwise voted Con, but voted Liberal.
Full CPAC interview here
As for Mark Carney, perhaps there is an alternative explanation, such as the one offered up by Senior Department of Finance Official, Brian Ernewein, who testified before the Income Trust Public Hearings that on the matter of their alleged tax leakage numbers being highly suspect: "I guess if we were incompetent, we would not admit to it."
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Harper lost Quadra due to income trust issue, has Mark Carney to thank
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3 comments:
It appears that the best way to show Mark Carney , Jimmy O`Flaherty , & Stephen Harper the way that we feel about them & their Tax fairness plan , is to kick their asses in an election.
It appears that they have done what they want to us , when they wanted to do it , & as nasty as they wanted to do it---we had no control whatsoever.
They ridiculed us as poor investors who put all our eggs in one basket (actually , these were the same eggs they promised to protect at all cost during their campaign)--they ridiculed us for investing in Ponzi schemes (these are the same Ponzi schemes that they said were better than sliced bread during the campaign)--they ridiculed us for being greedy & not doing what is best for the rest of the country (probably means that they will promise us social assistance for life in the next campaign now that we will be totally dependent upon the gov`t for our well-being).
I am surprised we are not too stupid to breath on our own--good thing Jim Flaherty is there to pop an eye patch every once in awhile to make sure .
Our day will come.
We may just be dogs in the eyes of these big wheels in Ottawa, but you know what they say dogs do to big wheels.
Mike.
Dr. Mike,
Well said.
I can not believe the arrogance of Deborah Meredith in saying "Canadians had too much invested in income trusts."
Hey, Deborah here's a little flash for you: Steven Harper said he would not double tax income trusts. That's why they invested (too much - sic) in income trusts.
I can only hope that the Liberals pull the trigger.
Trust Tax: Dumb And Dumber
Posted: March 19, 2008, 6:03 PM by Diane Francis
There remains trouble in Toryland over finance minister Jim Flaherty’s non-sensical tax on energy trusts and the income trust debacle cost the party a byelection in B.C. this week.
Its candidate cited income trusts as the major concern in the election. It is an issue that simply will not go away because it should not. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, at Flaherty's urging, reneged on a firm promise which is good leadership.
The issue is the single biggest reason why the Tories have not, and cannot, get a majority in the polls. Their foolish and flawed flip flop against trusts devastated and alienated their base. Some $35 billion in value disappeared overnight, affecting two million Canadian investors.
Taxing the energy trusts too, when other countries do not, has been a major policy blunder and Albertans are determined to prove how foolish it all has been with an initiative announced last week.
Energy trusts have joined the Liberals who have asked the Auditor General of Canada to investigate Flaherty’s claims that taxing the trusts was necessary to staunch tax leakage.
It was nonsense then and still is.
“$110 a barrel oil prices have camouflaged what is a big mistake in policy,” said Sue Riddell Rose in a phone interview with me last week. She is CEO of Paramount Energy Trust and the Coalition for Energy Trusts spokesperson.
Trusts used everywhere else
Trust structures are used, and recognized, around the world as a more efficient means of managing commodity companies which find planning difficult due to price fluctuations. Flaherty exempted real estate trusts but not energy trusts, a damaging inconsistency.
About 20% of the country’s 33 energy trusts (which pay considerably more taxes than all the foreign-owned oil companies combined) have been swallowed up by foreigners or other entities.
Ottawa’s attack has ruined the junior oil sector too since October 2006 despite soaring oil prices, she said.
“The junior oil sector is no longer vibrant. There is no exit strategy which was to sell oil and gas assets to trusts,” she said. Put another way, if oil prices had remained the same as when Flaherty made his tax announcement on Oct. 31, 2006, the oil patch would be in “dire” straits.
“They did not do their homework. They did not understand the industry and they have deceived the Canadian public,” she said.
Trusts tax really dumb idea
Flaherty’s leakage excuse was debunked in a report by accounting giant Deloitte weeks ago in a study that showed that the reverse has happened: where there was no leakage there is not massive leakage.
The mistake, or omission, made by him and Mark Carney – author of the scheme and rewarded by becoming Governor of the Bank of Canada -- was to exclude the massive downstream income trusts flowed to unitholders who paid top taxation rates.
It was amateur hour and the harm has been ongoing and will worsen, Riddell explained.
“In 2006, there was no leakage at all and revenues were enhanced by the trust structure,” she said. “We’ve tried to get breakdowns from government as to the percentage of its cash surpluses that are coming from this but cannot get anywhere.”
She said a rough guess is that Flaherty’s folly has cost governments at least $1 billion in tax revenues, but only the Auditor General, with her special access, can do the analysis needed for taxpayers.
“It’s a big number,” she said. “There are two things we would like them to do: Go through their analysis re the actual, downstream revenue and then to analyze what has been foregone as a result of the changes.”
Why isn’t she and others giving up?
“We continue to believe a proper analysis was not done and that the wrong decision was made to enable the efficient recovery of resources for Canadians,” she said. “I personally feel deceived by them because they misrepresented information to Canadians. Something else is driving these decisions and I think Canadians should know. I don’t.”
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