Ignatieff Speech to the Economic Club of Toronto

Monday September 29, 2008
Click here

Bubble Boy is Canada's answer to Sarah Palin

Stephen Harper: Canada's answer to Sarah Palin
Joanne Chianello, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Monday, September 29, 2008
What's the difference between Stephen Harper and Sarah Palin?

Lipstick.

The two 40-something hockey parents trying to position themselves as your average mom or family man, looking to exploit the cult of personality that has become so crucial to modern election campaigns. OK, Harper is trying to establish that he has a personality, but close enough.

They are both known for their eyes: hers, sparkling behind her designer rimless specs; his crystal blues shooting lasers at opponents and media alike.

Neither had any foreign policy experience when they hit the national stage. When Harper became leader of the newly formed Conservative party, he'd never travelled outside North America. Palin's international experience amounts to being able to spot Russia from her house on a clear day.

They're both seen as frontier-style renegades. While Palin has bagged a defenceless moose, Harper has gunned down an innocent public servant trying to do her job. (Remember Linda Keen? She was fired as president of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission for keeping a nuclear reactor shut down because she said it wasn't safe enough.)

And both of them, looking to win the second-highest and highest offices in their respective countries, have a history of, shall we say, "regionalist" sympathies. Palin's husband was a member of the Alaska Independence Party, and the couple attended the separatists' convention in 1994. And after she had been elected governor, reports the New York Times, Palin recorded a video greeting that the party played this year. "Good luck on a successful and inspiring convention," she said. "Keep up the good work, and God bless you."

In 2001, Stephen Harper co-wrote a letter urging then-Alberta premier Ralph Klein to take steps to protect the province from the federal government's predations. "This means resuming control of the powers that we possess under the Constitution of Canada but that we have allowed the federal government to exercise." The fact that the letter talked of building a "firewall" around Alberta didn't help dampen suspicions that Harper and his poli-sci buddies were closet separatists.

And in different ways, Palin and Harper are both looking to woo female voters.

Palin is drawing Republican female voters who suddenly think it's a great thing for a mother of small children to be seeking public office, while Harper is wooing female voters with a sweater vest and an expanded mat-leave program.

But last week, the clearest parallel between the Palin and Harper camps was the impenetrable bubble they've created around themselves.

Since being tapped as the John McCain's running mate, Republican campaign organizers haven't let Palin speak spontaneously to reporters -- which is unheard of in a national campaign. Last week, while in New York for a crash course in foreign affairs, Palin met with international leaders, including Afghan President Hamid Karzai -- and was again shielded from the media. That changed only after CNN anchor Campbell Brown flipped her lid on air, charging that protecting Sarah Palin like "she was a delicate flower" was sexist. On Thursday, Palin met with select reporters -- not the entire press corps -- and fielded only a few questions.



Stephen Harper's not quite that bad, but virtually none of his events during this campaign have been open to the public. Instead, he appears before handpicked groups to make announcements. On Thursday, Harper justified the unusual cocoon around him by noting that during an era of "global terrorism," the leader of any country "faces strong security threats."

Even more disturbing, many Conservative candidates have been shielded from the media. Of particular note, the RCMP were called upon last Tuesday to block reporters from speaking with B.C. Conservative candidate Dona Cadman, wife of the late MP Chuck Cadman.

Closer to home, John Baird has turned down an invitation to a public forum organized by City Hall to discuss issues relevant to the city, while Hull-Aylmer Conservative candidate Paul Fréchette declined to attend a Citizen editorial board meeting, and was a no-show on CBC's Ottawa Morning show with other area candidates.


And we're all waiting with bated breath to see if Cheryl Gallant, the controversial MP for Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke, appears at the all-candidates meeting scheduled for this evening. Infamous for comparing the beheading of a prisoner by Iraqis to abortion, Gallant routinely refuses to speak to the media.

For a brief moment, there seemed to be signs that Harper's camp might have been willing to make pinpricks in the iron-clad bubble around the leader.

This weekend, Harper attended the 50th anniversary of his west Toronto high school, a decision his aides say was spontaneous. According to a reporter in attendance, the atmosphere was much different than the super-controlled appearances the prime minister has made so far.

When Harper took the stage, there were a few boos. While he spoke, instead of rapt attention from the crowd, some people kept chatting at their tables. After the speech, one heckler yelled, "What about the environment? What about global warming?" Another guy responded, "This isn't the place for that, (expletive)."

So maybe Harper's team isn't ready to change its strategy just yet. In case there was any doubt, another reporter who snuck into the reunion Saturday night to interview people was caught and kicked out. After all, who'd want to hear what the people really think?

Jack Layton announces a tax on Job Creation.....free ATM fees can't be far behind

Isn’t “taxing job creation” and “focusing on working families” an oxymoron?

NDP platform focuses on 'working families'

Updated Sun. Sep. 28 2008 6:54 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

NDP Leader Jack Layton unveiled a platform Sunday aimed at helping Canadian families, focusing largely on child care, and said he would fund the plan by raising corporate tax rates.

'Give Flaherty the Boot' Campaign Comes to Brampton

BRAMPTON, ON, Sept. 28 /CNW/ - Workers will be demonstrating and collecting old work boots outside of Conservative candidate Parm Gill's campaign office on Monday at 1 p.m. in effort to highlight the Conservative government's inaction on manufacturing job loss and a sinking economy.\

<<
Give Flaherty the Boot comes to Brampton
Monday, September 29, 2008 at 1 p.m.
Royal Crest Mall -50 Kennedy Road South*
Brampton, Ontario

*The group will then be walking over to Parm Gill's campaign office
located at 96 Kennedy Road South.

The boots will be traveling to Whitby where they will be presented to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty on October 6 at 11 a.m. The 'Give Flaherty the Boot' campaign began in Windsor, where thousands of jobs have been lost since Stephen Harper took over as Prime Minister and Jim Flaherty as Finance Minister in January 2006.

Hundreds of pairs of boots have already been collected, each with their own personalized tag signed by their previous owner. Boots are also being collected in Oakville, Chatham, Oshawa, Toronto and Kitchener.


For further information: please contact CAW Communications, Shannon Devine, (cell) (416) 302-1699; or Event Co-ordinator Motilall Sarjoo (Sarj), (cell) (416) 709-6352

Rob Anders: Okay, now I've heard everything

Rep for Conservative MP Rob Anders claims Conservatives need a majority government to correct their income trust mess?


Brent



Thank you for your call today.



Here is a conversation I had with a representative for Rob Anders.



He was attempting to garner my support for the consevative party. I replied that I would not vote for them because they broke their promise on Income trusts. He replied that they would need a majority government to change it. I replied that he was correct. A Liberal majority gonvernment was needed and politely said good bye and hung up the phone.



Please pass this on to the Liberal policy makers.



I will be praying that you win over Jim Flaherty.



thanks

Doug

Harper is lying to Canadians and scamming seniors

Harper's "firestorm" broken promise was based on Harper's lie that income trusts cause tax leakage> Flaherty's tax leakage analysis is fraudulent.


http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080922/election2008_harper_BC_080922/20080928?s_name=election2008
Tories made good on half of election promises: CP
Updated Sun. Sep. 28 2008 2:27 PM ET

The Canadian Press

OTTAWA -- Stephen Harper's government has fulfilled half the promises it made in the last election campaign, an analysis by The Canadian Press indicates.

The Conservatives made at least some progress on several other commitments, bringing the tally of platform planks either fully or partially nailed down to 70 per cent.

The assessment comes as Harper prepares to unfurl a new sheaf of promises as early as Monday, two weeks before Canadians head to the polls to pass judgment on his government's record.

Harper recently told a crowd of supporters a "difficult parliamentary situation" and unforeseen crises prevented the minority Tories from achieving everything they promised. He called for a "strong mandate" in order to get on with the party's agenda.

An examination of Tory promises made during the last campaign suggests the lack of a majority prevented the government from going as far as it would have liked on issues such as toughening anti-crime laws.

But it highlights several areas, such as national security and parliamentary reform, where the government broke commitments, including a promise to let Tory MPs vote their conscience in most votes in the House of Commons.

Critics charge the government also failed to follow through with several promises on aboriginal issues, accountability and health care.

The Canadian Press looked at 236 campaign promises in the January 2006 Conservative platform on items ranging from agriculture and the economy to social issues and trade.

The examination indicates just over 50 per cent of promises were carried out, with another 20 per cent partially fulfilled. The remainder -- just under 30 per cent -- were considered broken.

The examination looked only at what Harper's Tories spelled out in the election document.

Though the Conservatives made good on most promises in several areas, such as the economy, infrastructure and social issues, it did not completely fulfil every promise in any of 14 areas, according to the analysis.

For instance, the government did come through with measures for students, including tax breaks and support for loans. But it didn't carry out plans to ensure dedicated funding for post-secondary education and training.

Perhaps the most frequently cited broken commitment is the federal reversal on taxation of income trusts, which ignited a firestorm of criticism from seniors and others who considered it a betrayal.

Other promises that never materialized seem long forgotten.

The government did not follow through on commitments to create a foreign intelligence service, make almost all Commons votes free ones, or overhaul the Access to Information Act.

The government's failure to beef up the information act, which allows Canadians access to government files, is a key flaw in its new accountability law, said Duff Conacher of Democracy Watch, a group that fights for integrity in politics.

"The law is like Swiss cheese, it's full of holes."

The Conservatives promised to open up federal procurement to ensure vendors outside the national capital region have a fair shot at contracts. Garth Whyte, executive vice-president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, said complaints from members about the bidding process have risen and that he sees no evidence things are easier for them.

"I think it's a lost opportunity in many respects."

On some high-profile issues, interested groups see little or middling progress on platform promises.

Michael McBane of the Canadian Health Coalition said the government has failed on its commitment to ensure care is publicly funded and universally accessible, citing user fees being charged for medically necessary services and queue-jumping at private clinics.

The government is not enforcing the Canada Health Act, he charged.

"It's my view that the Harper government is getting ready to cut and run from health care."

The Conservatives scrapped a Liberal government daycare program struck with the provinces in favour of their own mix of financial measures to create more spaces for children. But child-care advocates say it hasn't done the job.

"It's not any better than where we were last year or the year before," said Martha Friendly, executive director of the Childcare Resource and Research Unit. "So children are really losing out."

The government opened its wallet -- at least somewhat -- to address fallout in the forest sector, hit hard by the pine beetle, a high dollar and collapse of the American economy.

It isn't enough for David Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, who scoffs at suggestions the Tories have done their part to help laid-off employees and reeling communities.

"I think the government needs to play a very big role."

Fact checking Flaherty's lies....BTW where's Jim's proof of tax leakage?

Reality Check
Date: September 28, 2008
Flaherty's callous attitude on his income trusts betrayal



ISSUE:

Yesterday while campaigning in his riding of Whitby-Oshawa, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said of his income trust betrayal:

"It's an issue with some of the Bay Street people still, but it hasn't come up here." (Canadian Press, September 28, 2008)

REALITY:

Tell that to:



. Retiree Roland Marin of Montreal, who lost about $25,000.

"I have a lot of (investments in income trusts). They all went down." (Montreal Gazette, November 2, 2006)


. Retirees David and Lorraine Marshall of Cornwall, who lost about $100,000.

"The big thing is they lied to us. I worked for the candidate here, putting lawn signs up and all those things based on this one issue, income trusts." (Toronto Star, November 2, 2006)

. Retiree Richard Milne of Toronto, who lost $50,000.

"They reneged on their promise. That really upsets me." (Toronto Star, November 2, 2006)

. Former janitor Ron Cann, who lost about $18,000 - more than he earns in a year.

"I saved it over the years. I didn't have children. I'm kind of a frugal guy. I make my own wine and beer at home. I just get by. Losing whatever it's going to be at the end of the day, $15,000-$18,000 - it's going to hurt." (Toronto Star, November 2, 2006)

. Laid-off worker Noel Chaney of Vancouver Island, who lost about $65,000 and had to consider selling his home.

"I couldn't live on my pension, it's not enough. I never even considered the possibility of leaving this house. Now I'm thinking it might be something I have to think about." (Toronto Star, November 2, 2006)

. Ken Fast of Brampton, a pilot on medical disability who borrowed money to buy income trusts and had been using the dividends to make ends meet.

"My working career might be over. With these income trusts I had been able to generate enough steady income over the past four years that I have been independent. All of a sudden this is being taken away from me." (Toronto Star, November 2, 2006)

. Bob McKittrick of Prince Edward County, who lost about $250,000 for his 91-year-old mother. (Toronto Star, November 2, 2006)



-30-



Contact:



Liberal Party of Canada Press Office

613-783-8888

More spurious nonsense from Jim Flaherty

....in defense of his income trust betrayal/blunder


Below are some totally false statements being made by Jim Flaherty in an interview that appears in the September 25, 2008 edition of Whitby This Week, together with my rebuttal in [brackets].

Section Header:

On income trust tax: “If we were wimps, if we weren’t watching out for the best economic interests of our country, we would have done nothing. That’s the easy course, but this was important to do.”

Q: Is there anything you want voters to know about the issue of income trust tax, especially with your Liberal opponent so openly targeting the issue?

A: The fees on income trusts were in the last year that they were vibrant was about $5 billion [both false and irrelevant]-- not million, billion [again false since the average annual fees earned by Canadian underwriters was $400 million per year—million—not billion] and a lot of these brokers [I was never a broker, unless of course you consider that Mark Carney was also a “broker”, since it was Mark Carney whose “US centric broker” advice was followed by Jim Flaherty to bring down a retail investment vehicle that was a threat to Goldman Sachs and its clients as a strictly non-retail firm] made a tonne of money taking good Canadian companies and converting them via and initial public offering to an income trust which created no net gain for the companies [completely false, otherwise why would they do it?] but made a lot of fees for people [that were taxed by the Government of Canada at 50%]....it is a concern but I won’t shirk the issue [how very narrow minded of you, but you sure have shirked you responsibility when it comes to providing any proof of your central policy rationale. What became of accountability and transparency, Mr. Flaherty?].

Our government [don’t you mean your party?], when we were running for office, indicated [promised far and wide and put in writing] that we would not do what we did with income trusts [but you did it anyway]. It’s probably the hardest thing I’ve done as Finance Minister [hard? For whom. You? because you were way over your head, or the people whose retirements you destroyed and people who were forced to sell their homes to make ends meet, not to mention all Canadian taxpayers who have lost billions in, tax revenue, or the 2500 people fired at BCE?] and that was going to the prime minister in the summer of of 2006 [I guess that means you approached Stephen Harper after he had been lobbied by many a CEO in June 2006 in a five hour plane trip to Mexico according the the Globe and Mail, who wanted to eliminate an investment vehicle that was competing with their investment wares?] and saying to him “The facts have changed [how do facts change?, unless you instructed Mark Carney to leave out 38% of the taxes paid by income trusts to create a false argument that would give you faux justification for your actions on behalf of Canada’s corporate elite and lifecos?] and we need to look at the issue again [and yet you did not even entertain the idea of consulting with stakeholders the way that Ralph Goodale did?]. I’m recommending that we level the playing field [as measured by what? Putting a 31.5% tax on one team while the other team only pays a 6.2% tax? That’s not level,. That’s a policy falsehood, and you know it. Your goal from the outset was clear, Your policy was simply designed to kill the competition on behalf of the life insurance industry so they could go back to selling life annuities and other questionable products, free from any competition.]

If we were wimps [so why did you drop out of the CTV Virtual Town Hall meeting at Iroquois Park for October 1, 2008 if you aren’t a “wimp” and too afraid to debate the other candidate live on TV?], if we weren’t watching out for the best economic interests of our country, we would have done nothing [like you solemnly promised far and wide?]. That’s the easy course, but this was important to do.” [ important for whom and for what end purpose, to have Canadian companies acquired by middle eastern oil companies and Hong Kong billionaires? So 2500 people could be fired by BCE? So that $2 billion in tax revenue could be lost? So more takeovers amounting to $200 billion (not million) could occur? So that you could demonstrate your utter ineptitude and deceit?]

Income trust were being created for the wrong reasons [according to whom? The government?] they were being created because there was a tax loophole [income trusts are tax flow though entities. If tax flow through entities are a loophole then why is your law firm allowed to retain this tax loophole.Why can pension funds invest in so called tax loopholes, but RRSPs can not. RRSPs were intended to be the average Canadians ‘way of achieving parity with pension funds. You have destroyed that parity. Is that because you were too much of a wimp to take on Teachers’ the way that Ralph Goodale did?] and not because it was the best thing to do for business [wrong again. How is accessing a lower cost of capital not a wise thing for business to do? Especially when is has zero effect on government tax revenues? Is Jim Flaherty opposed to win-wins or is he simply in the pocket of Canada’s corporate elite and purveyors of competing products? Is that why Investor Group representative are knocking door to door in Whitby-Oshawa during this election touting Jim Flaherty’s policies with government literature?].

And now we will have by 2011 everyone [except pension plans, foreign private equity, law firms, accounting firms, REITs, mutual funds etc etc] playing by the same rules so a business that’s in a corporate form or in an income trust will pay the same level of tax in Canada [ totally false and unproven by Flaherty, since that was the way things were before Flaherty made his policy blunder, namely tax neutral to Ottawa. Meanwhile, under Flaherty, what level of tax will be paid by private income trusts versus public income trusts? Zero versus 31.5% doesn’t sound very level playing field to me?].

There’s a lot of reasons why we did what we did. [but I ain’t going to reveal the real reasons. For that you will have to speak with Brent Fullard, someone who speaks the truth and actually understands the complexities of finance and the motives of Corporate Canada and the needs of Canadians].

Jim Flaherty's double standard: Do as I say, not as I do.

At the time of Canada’s rising dollar, Jim Flaherty was the one who opportunistically began preaching to Canadians and telling them to “shop around” for the best bargain on things like Harry Potter books.

As if Canadians needed to be told that.

Jim tried (unsuccessfully) to position himself as “Captain Consumer” behind his podium that read “Standing up for Consumers”.

A few weeks later (see article below entitled “Flaherty grilled over untendered contracts”) we learned Jim wasn’t even following his own advice. Why am I not surprised?

Not only doesn’t Flaherty shop around, he breaks the laws of the Government of Canada, by not tendering contracts in excess of $100,000 in order for Ottawa to receive the best price and to “Stand up for Taxpayers”.

Not only does Jim not follow his advice of “shop around”, he handed a $122,000 contract to his buddy Hugh MacPhie.........$122,000? Thereby breaking the law. Meanwhile what is Dan Miles, as Flaherty’s Communications Director, being paid to do? Flaherty already had a Communications Director and Ministerial Staff. Can’t Flaherty write his own speeches? Why was Hugh MacPhie even required? To compensate for past favours?

Wasn’t Jim Flaherty the one who is famous for saying we must “level the playing field”? Evidently that expression means one set of rules for us. Another set of rules for Jim. Why would anyone vote for this kind of an arrangement with their MP?

Meanwhile, at about the same time as this was going on, Jim was trash talking Ontario and referred to any investments in GM and Ford as being “band-aid” and “ad hoc” solutions and not worthy of his support. Now Jim’s writing articles in this weeks’ Whitby this Week claiming to be supportive of the auto industry? The facts are otherwise. Of course Jim claims to be supportive of the very things he stood in the way of, simply because Jim wants people’s vote. Jim will stoop to anything to get it, even revisionist history.

Sorry Jim, we haven’t lost our memory. Nor has the CAW. The CAW’s voting advice for its members in Whitby-Oshawa is ABF. Anybody but Flaherty. What the CAW probably means is that Whitby-Oshawa voters should vote strategically and consolidate their votes with the candidate most likely to see Jim go packing and return his practice of insurance litigation law. Law? Aren’t laws meant to be respected?

Flaherty grilled over untendered contracts
David Akin, Canwest News Service
Published: Tuesday, May 13, 2008

How BCE insiders created the faux crisis for Flaherty to destroy trusts on behalf of Canada's corporate elite

Eventually the true story gets out:

except from
Debt Ridden: The story of the BCE deal

Theresa Tedesco, Chief Business Correspondent, Financial Post
Published: Saturday, September 27, 2008


In the end, BCE opted to convert itself into an income trust in mid-October, 2006.

Inside BCE's boardroom, the blue-ribbon directors weren't enthusiastic about the plan, but gave it their blessing, betting the measure was destined for doom because Ottawa would never allow it.

"Income trusts didn't have much appeal. We weren't particularly interested in doing an income trust but we thought if we announced we were doing one, it would force the government into a decision," said the source close to the company who asked not to be named.

They were right. Two weeks later, on Halloween, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced Ottawa would tax companies converting to income trusts to curb tax avoidance.

Harper: The same intellectually corrupt person who said income trusts cause $1 billion in tax leakage, or was it $12 billion?

Liberals will produce $12B deficit: Harper
Dion has denied charge before
Last Updated: Saturday, September 27, 2008 | 4:59 PM ETComments39
CBC News

Liberal plans will create a deficit "to the tune of at least $12 billion," Conservative Leader Stephen Harper said Saturday.

Harper didn't explain where the number came from, but Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion has rejected the charge before.

"A Liberal government will never put Canada into deficit. Period," Dion has said on the party website.

Harper addressed Conservative supporters in Ajax, Ont., listing the government's accomplishments and warning that the opposition parties would put the economy at risk.

With the credit crunch affecting the United States, Canada needs stable leadership "to get through this troubled world economy."

Harper also talked Saturday about other federal spending — such as funding for transportation projects — in the Ajax area, which is east of Toronto

Grudge matches and bellwethers

The Ottawa Citizen considers my race against Jim Flaherty to be a “grudge match”, when in fact my candidacy is all about seeking accountability and exposing the truth. I have been burdened with this responsibility, which I bear gladly, because the press has failed to perform this role insofar as exposing Jim Flaherty regressive economic policies and the many falsehoods and manufactured arguments upon which they are based.

Just imagine when Canadians learn that Jim Flaherty’s key policy argument that income trusts allegedly cause tax leakage is a complete manufactured falsehood, and that this falsehood has actually caused $2 billion in lost tax revenue per year, when in fact none existed in the first place. Add to that the $108 billion wave of foreign takeovers his policy induced, the major loss of jobs , the loss of an essential savings vehicle, the financial ruination of many people’s lives and retirement futures and a little thing called $35 billion of their savings.

And this person is the Finance Minister? Negligence like this hasn’t been observed since the days of Mike Harris, in which Jim Flaherty last played a starring role. Who would conceivably want a Harper government in office at one of the most challenging economic times of our lives? Their economic incompetence is only rivaled by that of the Jack Layton NDP who were the “enablers’ of this self destructive income trust policy. Where’s Jack Layton’s proof of anything?

This reporter, to whom I have never spoken, is predicting a Flaherty win, but provides no rationale for that bold prediction? Perhaps this reporter should attend one of the many debates I will have with Jim Flaherty and the other candidates. A Flaherty win would mean all Canadians lose, none more so than those in Whitby-Oshawa.

Grudge matches and bellwethers
On election night, these are the races that the nation's hardcore political junkies will be watching
David Akin, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Saturday, September 27, 2008

As he campaigns in ridings around the country, Conservative leader Stephen Harper has never mentioned local opposition candidates by name -- except once.

At a stop in Oakville, Mr. Harper had some special words for the local Liberal candidate.

"I should have told the media that when I called this general election, I did it to give Garth Turner that byelection he promised," Mr. Harper said to the cheers of his supporters.

Mr. Turner had been elected in 2006 as a Conservative but ended up annoying his caucus so much that it threw him out. After sitting for a spell as an independent, Mr. Turner joined the Liberals and now seeks re-election under that banner. As a Liberal, Mr. Turner has been a relentless critic of Mr. Harper and the Conservatives, mostly through daily posts on his popular blog, but also in the House of Commons and in town hall meetings in his riding and around the country. As a result, Conservatives find him as annoying as they ever did.

So, in the riding of Halton, at least, the race is one of the country's best grudge matches, pitting Mr. Turner against all Conservative comers.

But there are plenty of fights like this in this 40th general election.

And for those who are tiring of the same old speeches from the party leaders, Canwest News Service spotlights 20 races where the local flavour gives politics some extra spice. These races feature grudge matches, high-profile candidates, or could be trendsetters on election night.

The Grudge Matches

Halton (Ontario): Garth Turner has been a thorn in the Tory side since he was tossed from their caucus. Local Tories were annoyed that head office appointed a candidate -- Lisa Raitt -- to face off against Mr. Turner. But Conservatives will cheer loud and long if they can oust Mr. Turner on Oct. 14.

Whitby-Oshawa (Ontario): Finance Minister Jim Flaherty should win here, but his Liberal opponent is Brent Fullard, a key organizer of investors who were furious over Mr. Flaherty's decision to tax income trusts. Mr. Fullard is carrying the grudge of all Canadians who felt burned by the Tory flip-flop on income trusts.

etc. etc.

This from the man who reneged on Kyoto: Harper

Conservatives pledge to stop bitumen exports to countries with low emissions standards



CAMPBELL CLARK AND TU THANH HA

Globe and Mail Update

September 26, 2008 at 7:14 PM EDT

CALGARY — Stephen Harper's Conservatives say they will stop future exports of bitumen from Alberta's oil-sands to countries that have lower standards for greenhouse-gas emissions than Canada.

Right now, Canada's bitumen – the thick heavy oil that is transformed into crude oil – is mainly exported to the United States. Mr. Harper's ministers noted that both U.S. presidential candidates have promised tougher greenhouse-gas standards, so it might never apply to exports to that country.

Still, Mr. Harper, speaking in Calgary, the oil patch's business centre, said it might affect exports of bitumen to Asia, where countries like China have not adopted emissions standards for heavy industrial plants.

Alberta Deputy Premier Ron Stevens said his province's petroleum companies are already dealing with a measure of regulatory ambiguities from Mr. Harper's government's own emissions standards, which are set to take effect in 2010.

“This new promise or campaign suggestion will create more uncertainty because, if nothing else it's going to impact the ability to sell this product. And that's never good for business,” Mr. Stevens said in an interview.

The announcement also caught the Canadian pipeline giant Enbridge Inc. off guard.

Enbridge's multi-billion dollar Northern Gateway project would develop a pipeline bringing petroleum from Alberta to Asia-bound tankers at a marine terminal in Kitimat, British Columbia.

“We're surprised by today's announcement. We'll be looking for details,” said Gina Jordan, a spokeswoman for Calgary-based Enbridge.

Countries like China would still be able to buy crude oil that had been transformed within Canada, but Mr. Harper argued that the prohibition would prevent foreign countries from sidestepping Canadian environmental standards by buying the product as bitumen.

“What we will prohibit is bitumen exports designed to circumvent environmental regulations.”

According to the Conservatives, about 500,000 of the 1.3 million barrels a day of bitumen produced in Alberta are shipped out of the country before they are transformed into crude oil.

But transporting bitumen over long distances requires is a difficult process that requires substantial infrastructure, so right now such exports are confined to the U.S.

Mr. Harper's announcement yesterday comes after the U.S. Congress decided last week not to change Section 526 of the U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act, which bans American federal agencies from buying alternative fuels that produce more greenhouse gases than conventional oil.

The Conservative government had proposed so-called intensity targets for greenhouse-gas emissions, which require industry to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases they emit per unit of production. Environmentalists have called for Canada to adopt what they call absolute reductions, so that companies like oil producers would have to decrease their emissions even if they increase production.

When told by a reporter about the Conservative bitumen plan at a Thursday morning scrum in Burnaby, B.C., NDP Leader Jack Layton was slightly taken aback. He said he's going to have to study the proposal, but added that such a plan sounds contradictory coming from Mr. Harper.

“Mr. Harper has been leading the charge to export bitumen out of Canada, without even processing it here, to the United States,” Mr. Layton said. “His cabinet has approved pipelines that essentially are drawing jobs out of Canada, and he doesn't have limits on carbon emissions in Canada, so what you've just suggested to me sounds absurd, or at least contradictory, and one can probably come up with other adjectives after we've studied it more closely.”

Harper’s trust policy related buyouts total $108 billion

Tax losses equal $2 billion a year. Job losses: 2500


In these uncertain economic times, there is only one thing that is certain. We can’t afford to have Stephen Harper at the helm of our economic ship of state. The best example of his complete incompetence and ineptitude on fiscal matters is his income trust tax. First he falsified his rationale for his policy flip flop. Income trusts do not cause tax leakage. Jim Flaherty manufactured the government’s tax leakage claims. Meanwhile Stephen Harper’s policy has, itself, created tax leakage.

This is proof of Stephen Harper’s economic negligence. He caused the very problem he professed he was going to solve. Outcomes don’t get worse than that. Stephen Harper: Mr. 180 Man.

If Stephen Harper has a different viewpoint about whether income trusts cause tax leakage, then I challenge him to produce his proof of tax leakage? He did claim that he was going to usher in a new era of accountability and transparency, did he not? Where is it?

In two short years Harper’s ineptitude has caused $108 billion in trust policy takeovers and 2,500 job losses, as follows:

58 trust takeovers amounting to $56.8 billion in value
BCE takeover amounting to $52 billion in value and causing 2,500 firings

Total Policy related takeovers: $108 billion
Total Policy related takeovers: $2 billion a year, potentially grwoing to $7 billion a year
Total Policy related job losses: 2,500
Losses sustained by Canadians saving for retirement: $35 billion

Stephen Harper is a Sub Prime Prime Minister. Jim Flaherty, The Asset Backed Commercial Paper Minister of Finance. A dangerous duo indeed and a sure fire way to destroy Canada’s economic future if re-elected.

A personal request

Our campaign in Whitby-Oshawa is presently 85% funded, in light of the Elections Canada spending limit of $98,000 for Whitby-Oshawa.

Please consider donating to our campaign in Whitby-Oshawa, so that we can leave no stone unturned in bringing accountability and transparency and fiscal sanity to the people of Whitby-Oshawa and the rest of Canada

In light of the fact that Jim Flaherty thinks that Ontario is the last place to invest, this can only mean that our campaign is the first place to invest.
A $400 donation will cost you $100 after tax, and will result in a tax refund of $300 in your April 2009 tax filing. The maximum contribution that can be made to our campaign is $1,100 (and an equal amount to the party as well).

Our party’s platform entitled “A Richer, Fairer, Greener Canada is available on line at liberal.ca for those of you who wish to achieve such an end result for Canada, as opposed to a poorer, inequitable and denial form of Canada under Stephen Harper.

Page 18 of our policy platform contains my party’s commitment on the income trust issue. The Liberal Party under Stephen Dion keeps its commitments. You have my personal assurance as well, which will only mean anything if I am elected:

““Building upon our initial proposal to retain income trusts as a high yield investment option so that Canadians have diversity of investment vehicles, while ensuring tax neutrality between corporations and income trust, a Liberal Government will repeal the punitive 31.5 percent on income trusts and replace it with a 10 percent tax that is refundable for Canadian residents.”

Donations by internet:

Donate
to Brent's Campaign

Donations by mail:

Payable to “Brent Fullard Campaign”

1540 Dundas Street East
Whitby, Ontario
L1N 2K7

Tel: 905-665-3203

Thank you very much

Brent
email: brent@iwork4you.ca

Toronto Star completely blows its own credibility

Where's the Star's proof of anything?

I met with the Toronto Star Editorial Board in April 2007

The Star’s editorial board was (to my complete and utter amazement) actually supporting the Harper government’s use of 18 pages of blacked out documents as "proof" of tax leakage....and these document's subsequent recall. Huh?

This is easily explained when you realize that the Toronto Star's editorial board is simply advancing the corporate interests of Torstar Inc. as in the case of this pathetic piece of editorial nonsense in today’s paper entitled “Credibility and trusts”

Unfortunately it is the Star’s credibility that is on the line here, not the Liberal Party’s.

The Toronto Star wants to save his own self interests known as the Atkinson Principles, which provide the Star’s editors with “editorial freedom”, that are only assured to him under the corporate abuse known as Voting/Non voting share structure of Torstar Inc.

Something that the Toronto Star would have to forego if their declining newspaper empire were to convert to a trust. Again, I ask the question: What price editorial freedom? The Toronto Star’s position on this issue is a disgrace and wholly unsupportable by the facts.....something that Toronto Star has no grasp of, or interest in.

Yesterday the Star was condemning Harper for his oppressive right wing agenda. .....today the Star is applauding them and condoning them by supporting Harper’s destruction of senior’s nest eggs and sovereignty over Canadian businesses..

Perhaps the Star's editorial board can explain how all the professed “evils” of trusts are corrected by the mere act of domestic pension plans and foreign private equity buying them......and not paying the 31.5% tax?.......and causing REAL Tax leakage of $2 billion a year to date....soon to become $7 billion a year.

Where’s the Star’s proof of anything? Where’s the Star’s proof of their alleged $1 billion leakage from trusts? Does the Star not know what actually ended up happening with BCE? Is the Star even a part of this galaxy of ours?

Toronto Star. You have proven nothing, except that you are totally and commercially compromised.......and devoid of facts and logic.


EDITORIAL
Credibility and trusts


Sep 26, 2008 04:30 AM
Be the first to comment on this article...
Income trusts are all about trust.

So said the Liberals as they unveiled their election platform this week: they once again condemned the Conservatives for breaking their promise in the last campaign to leave this controversial tax loophole untouched.

Canada's nearly 250 income trusts had previously been spared any corporate tax, costing the treasury hundreds of millions of dollars a year, according to the finance department. Because income trusts enjoyed an unfair advantage over conventional taxpaying companies, some of Canada's biggest corporations were planning to convert to trust status. A stampede of banks and conglomerates, notably BCE, could have pushed the tax leakage above $1 billion.

Mindful of the strong case made by the finance department, the governing Liberals were on the verge of closing that loophole before the last election, but stalled for time. It fell to the victorious Conservatives to follow through: They imposed a 31.5 per cent tax to take effect in 2011, effectively stopping the trusts in their tracks. So far, 60 trusts have converted back into corporations.

Now, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion is promising to restore the tax advantage of trusts by replacing the Conservative tax with a much smaller 10 per cent levy that would be refundable to Canadian residents. It is a thinly disguised effort win favour among seniors, many of whom had invested in income trusts because of their high cash payouts and saw the value of their holdings decline in the aftermath of the Harper government's move.

Furthermore, the Liberals are implicitly acknowledging that income trusts are problematic by proposing a moratorium on the formation of any new ones.

With this promise, the Liberals are diluting their own credibility.

Eric Reguly: "This is a disaster for Jim Flaherty"

Eric Reguly in why this is a disaster for Jim Flaherty:
Listen here.

The 46th "disaster for Jim Flaherty":

TORONTO, Sept. 25 /CNW/ - Connors Bros. Income Fund (TSX: CBF.UN) (the "Fund"), whose subsidiaries market consumer food products under brands such as Bumble Bee(R), Clover Leaf(R), Brunswick(R), and Sweet Sue(R), today announced that it has entered into a transaction agreement (the "Agreement") to sell its operating businesses to an affiliate of US Private Equity firm, Centre Partners Management, LLC ("Centre Partners"). Centre Partners, established in 1986, is a leading middle market private equity firm with offices in New York and Los Angeles.

Under the terms of the Agreement, Centre Partners will acquire the operating subsidiaries controlled by the Fund, which will result in the Fund's unitholders receiving C$8.50 per unit in cash. The C$8.50 per unit price will be paid to the Fund's unitholders by way of a distribution on and redemption of the Fund's outstanding units.

Harper denigrates certain Canadians to ingratiate himself with others

...............purely for political advantage.


Stephen Harper represents the worst possible type of “leadership”. His concept of leadership is to create tensions amongst various sub-groups of Canadians and to exploit it for his own political advantage. Subgroups of his own definition.

Stephen Harper is an embarrassment to Canada and to Canadian values.

Why do you suppose the Conservative party is profiling voters in every riding of Canada on the basis of race, ethnicity and religion? To bring them closer together or to exploit their differences?

This profile, exploit and divide strategy of Stephen Harper had been evidenced on a number of occasions.

Why do you suppose he weighed in on the matter of whether women could wear burkas while voting, when he was half way around the world in Australia? Because he wanted to bring social harmony and greater voter freedoms to our country. Or because he wanted to inflame xenophobia amongst Canadians for his own sad political advantage?

Why do you suppose Harper cut $47 million in funding to the arts community? Because he thought $47 million was about to break the bank? If so, why didn’t he cut the $17 million grant to Red Wilson’s pet project, the Historica Foundation at the same time? Oh right, Red Wilson is millionaire CEO is not an artist, or a person in need. You see, Harper’s cuts to the arts had nothing to do with the fiscal aspect of that move, but everything to do with marginalizing artists in the middle of an election in order to empower his myopic xenophobic divide and conquer “base”.

That base needs to think twice about Harper. He is as apt to turn on them as he is willing to exploit others. The income trust investor knows this only too well. One minute (ie the 2006 election), income trusts investors are treated like Stephen Harper’s favorite cat and then the next minute (after an exercise in fear mongering and the faux crisis of BCE, orchestrated by the CCCE), Stephen Harper treats these income trust investors like they are mangy disease infected alley cats deserving of a quick boot to the groin.

Note: Those to whom Harper is presently pandering, you could be next. Will be next?

Stephen Harper: Anything but a leader. An exploiter. An exploiter with no morals. Someone representative of the worst of Canadian values. Just ask Margaret Atwood.

Stephen Harper’s idea of a "Tax Fairness Plan":

Allow income splitting.........for the 14% of seniors with “eligible pension income” , and not the other 86% without?

Tax EBITDA at 31.5%.........if you are an income trust............6.2% if you are a corporation?

Tax public income trusts in RRSPs at 31.5%.........private income trusts in pension plans at 0%?

Restrict the growth of Canadians companies when owned by Canadians, but not when owned by foreigners?

Create $7 billion a year in tax leakage, where none previously existed?

Hold yourself to account with 18 pages of blacked out documents and explanations of “It’s not my fault” ?

Dupe the financially illiterate press.

Move on to next policy blunder in the making unencumbered by the press.....or the facts.

Toronto Star: Protester challenges Flaherty

Photo: Liberal Candidate Brent Fullard holding Flaherty's 18 pages of blacked out "proof" of tax leakage


Evidently Jim Flaherty thinks it is “extremist” to pursue accountability and transparency from his government on an issue that profoundly negatively affects all Canadians, But then Flaherty thinks I am a “broker”? Again showing how little Jim Flaherty understands about he world of finance .......or truth in government. Unaccountable Jim: It’s not his fault. He doesn’t fix potholes. Ontario is the last place to invest. Jail the homeless. It’s the law.

Protester challenges Flaherty

Liberal candidate Brent Fullard, an investment banker, took on Finance Minister Jim Flaherty at an all-candidates meeting at Sinclair Secondary School in Whitby Sept. 23, 2008.
Liberal candidate 'holds extremist views' on income trust issue, finance minister claims

Sep 24, 2008 04:30 AM
Comments on this story (23)
Patty Winsa
Staff Reporter

For two years, Brent Fullard has waged a battle against the Conservative government's flip-flop on income trusts.

He organized a special interest group and has taken out full-page ads in major newspapers, calling the Oct. 31, 2006, government move to end, as of 2011, the tax advantages enjoyed by income trusts "Jim Flaherty's Great Canadian Giveaway Sale."

Now the freelance investment banker is running as the Liberal candidate against Flaherty, the federal finance minister, in the riding of Whitby-Oshawa.

Yesterday, Fullard opened a student-organized all-candidates meeting with criticism of Flaherty's move on income trusts, which had followed a promise by the Conservatives in the 2006 election campaign not to tax income trusts.

At Whitby's Sinclair Secondary School – a venue where students had questions about finances, the environment and post-secondary education – Fullard's opening remarks accused Flaherty of a "massive policy blunder" that destroyed seniors' savings when he "double-taxed income trusts."

"I'm very serious about running for office in this riding ... because there is this dissatisfaction with this arrogant person who is negligent and incompetent," Fullard said later in an interview. "I'm opposed not to the person, but to his policies and his demeanour."

Income trusts avoid most corporate taxes by distributing profits to unit holders, and they were an increasingly popular business structure. They had become a popular investment vehicle for seniors, so the government's move to end, as of 2011, the tax advantages enjoyed by income trusts compared to regular corporations sparked protests across the country.

The decision shocked the financial sector. When markets opened the next day, investors dumped their units and the TSE plummeted 300 points. In one week, 70 trusts lost $20 billion in stock value. Many seniors lost their savings.

On Monday, the Liberal party pledged to replace the Tories' 31.5 per cent tax on income trusts with a 10 per cent tax that would be refundable to Canadian residents.

Fullard founded the Canadian Association of Income Trust Investors and raised $1 million to advocate for income trusts.

Recently, he sent Flaherty a registered letter offering to put up $50,000 to the charity of Flaherty's choice if the minister would publicly debate him on income trusts.

The offer was rejected.

The income trust issue has been dealt with, Flaherty said in an interview. "It's now the law in Canada. It's not about to be changed."

Flaherty called Fullard a one-issue candidate. "He holds extremist views. He's a Forest Hill broker that Mr. Dion decided to parachute into my riding." Fullard does live in Forest Hill but taking on Flaherty was his own initiative. Judi Longfield, who lost to Flaherty in 2006, is now the Liberal party executive director in Ontario.

Single-issue candidates have wonelections before. "Some people have called this a type of surrogate leadership," said Robert MacDermid, a York University political science professor. "For instance, (former New Democrat MP) Svend Robinson kind of represented the gay rights constituency. To a certain extent, that's what (Fullard's) doing here. He's being a surrogate representative for people concerned about the income trust issue."

Although it's a legitimate form of representation, MacDermid said many people would also argue that a representative should be connected to his or her constituency.

Flaherty said this is his strength.

"I've lived in Whitby for a long time. I've been the provincial member and federal member. This is our community," said Flaherty, referring to his wife Christine Elliott, who is the MPP for the riding

Conservative MP apologizes for Harper's income trusts

[LE FRANÇAIS SUIT L'ANGLAIS]
For Immediate Release
September 24, 2008

Conservative MP apologizes for Harper's income trusts betrayal

WHITBY - Conservative MPs are continuing to feel the sting of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's income trusts betrayal at the door, with St. Catharines' Conservative Candidate Rick Dykstra trying to limit the damage to his re-election chances.

Speaking at an all candidates' debate, Mr. Dykstra tried to remove the Flaherty albatross from his campaign by asking forgiveness from the voters:

"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)

The founder of the Canadian Association of Income Trust Investors and now Liberal Candidate for Whitby-Oshawa, Brent Fullard has said now that Mr. Dykstra has been so candid about the betrayal, it is time from Finance Minister Jim Flaherty tosay he is sorry too.

"So far all the Conservatives have offered to income trust investors is scorn and disdain," said Mr. Fullard. "Mr. Dykstra's apology is a good first step, but it is meaningless unless the Conservatives reverse their policy.

"Canadians need to hear an apology from the architect of this financial disaster, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty," he said.

-30-

Contact:

Liberal Party of Canada Press Office
613-783-8888

Students watch Whitby-Oshawa candidates debate the issues for the first time together

PARVANEH PESSIAN / METROLAND


Students watch Whitby-Oshawa candidates debate the issues for the first time together

Sep 24, 2008 - 10:30 AM

By Parvaneh Pessian

WHITBY -- An all-candidates debate at Sinclair Secondary School in Whitby proved to be an informative experience for senior students, evoking various reactions and even shifting the political stance of some.

The four candidates in the Whitby-Oshawa riding took to the stage in front of about 150 students Tuesday morning, debating together for the first time since the writ was dropped earlier this month.

"The students actually get to see the election process happening right before their eyes and I think it really brings politics into their world," said Kim Lang, who's taught the subject at the school for 14 years. "It lets them realize that they have a voice and a place in the political process."

The event was organized by students in the Grade 12 politics class and was open for senior students from other classes to watch. Students researched issues for weeks to develop questions and then as a class selected which topics to approach the candidates with.

The students touched on topics such as tuition, crime rates, the environment and the fate of General Motors workers. A panel of four students -- one representing each party -- asked the candidates questions and then it was opened up to the floor.

Many attending the event, like student Vlad Dobrescu, said the quality of responses during the debate helped sway them toward a particular party.

"I think it was interesting to see who attacked the others more and who talked about their actual policies," he said, adding that he was drawn to the NDPs and Greens because he found Liberal candidate Brent Fullard was mostly just targeting Conservative Jim Flaherty.

English teacher Jennifer Jenkins disagreed, saying she was impressed by Mr. Fullard's handle on the issues and thought his debating style stood out.

Student and debate MC Parker MacKay said it was an informative political experience for everyone there, especially since Mr. Flaherty is also Canada's federal finance minister.

"I think that it's beneficial for the students and it's really exciting for me because I take the time to research politics," he said.

The school hosts the event every year there is a provincial or federal election and all attending students are either eligible to vote or will be next year. After the two-hour debate, the students had a chance to meet the candidates face-to-face.

"The questions were good and they covered a broad range of subjects, which made it more interesting," Mr. Flaherty said, while shaking hands with people exiting the theatre. "My experience in the high schools in a lot of elections has been that the students are very interested and ask very direct questions."

Mr. Fullard also said he was happy to see the students demonstrate a high level of political knowledge and keenness.

"Without people's involvement, you're not going to have a good government and the more of these events that happen, the better."

Green candidate Doug Anderson said more schools hosting debates will help candidates reach out to youth.

"They're the future," he said, looking off at the students hovering over tables with brochures from each party. "I hope that their interest carries on and that they do vote."

NDP candidate David Purdy said in addition to the forums, he believes political science as a mandatory credit in high schools would add to students' interest.

"Most kids are so excited about turning 19 so they can go out and have a legal drink. Imagine what it would be like if more of them were excited about turning 18 so they can go out to vote."

Is Power Corporation tampering with election in Whitby Oshawa?

Why are paid Investors Group Consultants canvassing door to door in Whitby Oshawa touting Flaherty’s Tax Free Savings Account during an election?

These Investor Group employee(s) are handing out full colour brochures whose cover carries the Government of Canada logo and flag and read:


Budget 2008
Responsible Leadership
February 26, 2008
Tax-Free Savings Accounts
Government of Canada (in English and French) and the Canada logo
Cover depicts a child waving the Canadian Flag


The brochure then depicts the TFSA as the second coming of RRSPs and directs inquiries to the Department of Finance. Attached by staple to the brochure is the business card of the Investors Group Consultant.

As you all know Jim Flaherty as Finance Minister introduced the TFSA, to lukewarm response, given its true intentions to undermine RRSPs and acceleraate withdrawals from RRSPs and to discourage RRSP contributions.

If you want a copy of the Investor’s Group/Government of Canada brochure please email me at brent.fullard@rogers.com and I will fax you a copy.

I consider this blatant election tampering by commercial interests. The not so subliminal references to The Harper government and the Minster of Finance are something only Polly Anna would consider not to constitute election tampering.

Investors Group is owned and controlled by Power Corporation through Power Financial.

The Consultant whose brochure I was given by an enraged constituent works out of the Peterborough office of Investors Group.

We know that Stephen Harper’s and Jim Flaherty’s income trust tax was a bespoke tax policy designed to benefit the life insurance companies in Canada. That is why the CEO of Manulife gave testimony in favour of this policy at the oublic hearings. It is also why Paul Desmarais Jr. was reported (Globe and Mail November 2, 2006) as engaged in the following lobbying activities:

“Paul Desmarais Jr., the well-connected chairman of Power Corp. of Canada, even railed against trusts in a conversation with Prime Minister Stephen Harper during a trip to Mexico, and told him he should act quickly to stop the raft of conversions, according to sources.”

Are Power Corporation and Jim Flaherty are involved in an exercise of back scratching? You scratch my back, and I will scratch yours. Pathetic.

When will RCMP probe Flaherty for his income trust fraud?

Today’s news: FBI investigates mortgage fraud in US banking crisis.
Click here


Flaherty's fraud: Click here

CAW Rallies Members for Federal Election in Oshawa

OSHAWA, ON, Sept. 23 /CNW/ - CAW President Ken Lewenza will be making his first visit to Oshawa as the union's national president for a CAW membership election rally on Wednesday, September 24.


Lewenza will lay out the union's position of strategic voting to defeat the Harper Conservatives, as endorsed by the CAW's Council, the parliament of the union.


"Stopping a Stephen Harper majority is one of the most important challenges Canadian unions and progressives have ever faced," said Lewenza.


The CAW is endorsing former CAW Local 222 President and NDP candidate Mike Shields in the Oshawa riding. The seat is currently held by Conservative MP Colin Carrie, who has been accused by GM workers of abandoning his constituents during the announcement of the Oshawa truck plant closure in June.


In the neighbouring ridings of Durham and Whitby-Oshawa, the CAW is endorsing an 'ABC' voting strategy (Anyone But Conservative), with the goal of preventing a Conservative majority government. In particular, the union is urging members to ensure Finance Minister Jim Flaherty does not get re-elected to office.


On the list of speakers at Wednesday's election membership rally will be CAW President Ken Lewenza, Mike Shields and CAW Local 222 President Chris Buckley. The meeting is part of a leadership election tour by Lewenza to various communities across Ontario over the next two weeks.



Wednesday, September 24, 2008 at 7 p.m.
CAW Local 222 Hall - 1425 Phillip Murray Avenue
Oshawa, Ontario

Media are welcome.

Today's debate with Jim Flaherty

Sinclair Secondary School in Whitby had the first all candidates debate this morning, that was open only to the student body. Here were my opening remarks. We were confined to one minute:

As students you work hard to get ahead.

Imagine if you worked hard your entire year at school and found yourself failing at the end of the year.

Not because of your fault, but because your teacher left out 38% of your marks.

That’s exactly what Jim Flaherty did to 2.5 million Canadians, mostly older Canadians, like your grandparents.

These people worked their entire lives to have enough money to pay their bills in retirement.

Jim Flaherty destroyed these people’s savings when he double taxed income trusts.

He claimed income trusts cause tax leakage.

He created that false argument by leaving out 38% of the taxes these Canadians pay to the government,

Jim Flaherty’s actions have caused $92 billion in takeovers of Canadian companies, mostly by foreigners, causing $2 billion a year in lost tax revenue and 2500 people to lose their jobs at BCE.

Jim Flaherty needs to take responsibility for his massive policy blunder which is causing great harm to all Canadians and to your futures.

Leadership? Harper is merely the artifice of leadership

Leadership? Here’s Ten Reasons Why the Tax on Income Trusts Was a Public Policy “Train Wreck”

There’s considerable evidence to indicate the Harper government created the appearance of a crisis or phony crisis to sell the tax.

By W.T. Stanbury (Professor Emeritus, UBC) Sept. 22,2008
The Hill Times

Introduction: Let’s start with Stephen Harper’s proposition that the central issue in the current election campaign is “leadership.” Effective leadership should produce good public policies. In this piece, I argue that there are ten reasons why the huge tax on income trusts announced on October 31,2006, and made into law on June 22,2007, is the greatest public policy “train wreck” in decades. It puts in question Mr. Harper’s leadership skills, and that includes his willingness to tell the truth. The tax may also be an albatross for Finance Minister Jim Flaherty.

1. Harper Denied He Reversed Himself

The income trust tax was an obvious reversal of repeated promises by Stephen Harper when he was Opposition Leader in 2005 and during the last election campaign. This reversal was widely perceived to be a serious ethical fault and Harper provided no convincing reason why such a reversal was justified. Harper did not lie because he did not intend to mislead the public with his promises. However, on November 1,2006 in the Commons, Mr. Harper did lie about what he said during the election campaign. The clearest statement was in the party’s election platform released on January 13,2006. “A Conservative government will…preserve income trusts by not imposing any new taxes on them.”

During Question Period on November 1,2006, the PM said: “The commitment of this party ….. was a commitment to protect the income of seniors”. On November 2, the PM said, ”this government will not apologize for trying to protect the interests of individuals and a tax system that makes big business pay its fair share.” You decide.

2. Huge Capital Losses

The S&P/TSX Income Trust Index. closed on October 31, 2006 at 164.86. Two days later, the index was at 138.21. That represents a loss of $32.5 billion to the owners of trust units. Two weeks later the index was at 135.51 representing a loss of $35.6 billion. To the extent that the Trust Index later rose to higher levels does not diminish this loss for two reasons. First, some investors had to have sold shortly after the announcement—otherwise the index would not have fallen. The index reflects real transactions at real prices. Second, any subsequent increase in the index is the result of the myriad variables that affect market value, such as interest rates, and energy prices (particularly
important to the energy trusts), and the further one gets from the initial announcement date the more one has to factor in the relative price movement of other indices to which the trust index is historically correlated, i.e., the broader TSX common share stock index and/or the energy subsector thereof.

3. Using a Methodology Known to be Greatly Biased

The Department of Finance’s methodology used to estimate the so-called “tax leakage” of $500 million for the federal government in 2006 omitted the present value of deferred taxes on the 39% on trust units held in tax deferral accounts like RRSPs. The officials knew as early as March 2004 and again in the summer of 2005 that their methodology was seriously biased toward generating revenue losses when income trusts were compared to regular corporations. When these deferred taxes are included, there was no “tax leakage.” Thus a serious omission may well have resulted in misleading policy advice by officials to their Minister, and the PM.

4. An Orwellian “Tax Fairness Plan”

The stated justifications for the 31.5% tax on income trusts were at best seriously questionable. The Government’s use of language in the so-called “tax fairness plan” was reminiscent of George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth.

The government made a great effort to frame the new 31.5% tax on income trusts as a matter of “tax fairness.” A frame is a conceptual structure intended to call up a wider/deeper set of constructs that will help to define a concept or issue in the way the framer desires. It makes use people’s prior modes of classifying information and issues; it takes advantage of embedded mental habits. The objective of such framing is to “ make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” The trust tax was bundled with three small tax cuts, two of which benefited seniors. But the benefits for seniors amounted to about 2% of their capital losses on trust units.

An analysis of the new tax on some income trusts shows that the measure did not achieve “tax neutrality” as repeatedly claimed by the government. The tax added to the variegation in effective tax rates across types of business organizations, and by types of owners of these assets. The tax did not “level the playing field” as the Minister claimed so loudly and repeatedly. In fact, the tax was highly discriminatory--- it exempted REITs ( which accounted for about 15% of the total market value of trusts on the TSX), and private flow through entities like those used by many law and accounting firms.



5. Phony Crisis to “Sell” the Policy

There is considerable evidence to indicate that the Harper Government created the appearance of a crisis or phony crisis to sell the tax. The government proceeded in secret during 2006, then made a dramatic announcement of strong action. Then it justified the move by claiming that there was a crisis which forced it to act as it did. The claims were couched in emotive rhetoric, primarily by Finance Minister Flaherty. Here is one of many possible examples. On November 9,2006, before the Commons Finance Committee, Flaherty was asked: “if we had maintained the status quo, was there any threat of it driving us into the red?” He said: “Over time, yes. There was a clear and present danger that Canada was going to become an income trust economy…” Ridiculous! The claimed tax revenue losses of $500 million in 2006, were a minute fraction of corporate income tax revenues of over $37 billion, and the current surplus of over $12 billion in 2006.

A few minutes later, the Minister claimed that the “ erosion of the tax base [ said to be due to trusts ] would have meant that, to pay for… the health transfers, the post-secondary education transfers, the social transfers, and infrastructure, we would have had to tax more and more individuals and their families…” This apocalyptic rhetoric is false.

6. A Zero Revenue Tax?

The income trust tax is an extremely unusual tax.. No revenue will be collected, but the entities subject to the tax will disappear from public capital markets -- which was the apparent point of the effort. The Department of Finance never gave any estimate of the amount tax revenue the new tax was expected to generate in any of its documents. This was most unusual; the officials evidently knew that no revenue would be collected because the tax did not apply until 2011 and by then there would no longer be any of the income trusts subject to the tax.

7. Many Misleading Statements By the Minister

Finance Minister Flaherty was the point man for the trust tax. He made endless misleading statements in support of the government’s action. He claim that the tax would result in $2 billion in revenue losses for the provinces over four years was unfounded as it failed to take into account the redistribution affects among provinces. Flaherty claimed that the proposed conversion of Telus and BCE to trusts would cause huge tax losses was false since both companies had already stated that their cash corporate income taxes would be negligible for the next several years.

The Minister ( and an official!) testified on January 30,2007 that the drop in the market value of trust units immediately after the announcement of the new tax was evidence of so-called “tax leakage.” This is an elementary, but serious error. The drop was due to the introduction of the tax. Asset values and changes in taxes on those assets move inversely to each other. The fall in value would have occurred even if the tax rate on trusts had been higher than on corporations!

8. Very Large Adverse Economic Consequences

Most serious, was the evident failure of the Harper Government to anticipate the reasonably predictable adverse consequences of the tax. They have been huge (and are still being felt in September 2008). One of the most important induced effects of the tax has been (and will continue to be) a decline federal (and provincial) tax revenues due to the takeover of the devalued income trusts by entities which pay lower taxes than did the trusts, i.e., foreign interests, domestic-private equity funds, and domestic pension funds. With some leveraging, foreign owners, subject only to the 15% withholding rate, can reduce the effective tax rate to near zero.

9. Punitive Remedy, When Better Alternatives Were Available

The government’s “remedy” for the purported problems associated with the rapid growth of income trusts ( a 31.5% tax on the distributions of some publicly-traded trusts ) was far hasher than it needed to be. What were the practicable alternatives? a) Suspend the advance approval of proposed new trusts as the Liberals did on September 19, 2005 (recognizing that that such an action would likely cause a drop in the market price of income trust units due to uncertainty). – and simultaneously announce a transparent, consultative process to review the issue with a public report in three months; b) Declare a moratorium on new trusts – and simultaneously announce the same process; c) Impose a tax on income trust distributions at source of 7% to 10%. Witnesses made it clear that such a tax would be sufficient to actually level the playing field based on the effective corporate income tax rates—which vary by sector and firm; d) Apply alternative c), but make the tax refundable to Canadian residents. (This might violate the “national treatment” provision of NAFTA.); e) Lower the corporate income tax. The Liberals had started to lower the corporate income tax (and they increased the dividend tax credit) to reduce the gap between the two different legal forms of organization of businesses, trusts and corporations. On October 30,2007, Flaherty---but it came far too late for the trusts. announced much larger cuts in the corporate income tax. One expert, Dennis Bruce, pointed out that the various reductions since 2004 effectively eliminated the claimed “tax leakage’—even using Finance’s biased methodology.

10. Closed Process—But Secret Lobbying by Certain Interests.

There was no public consultation process in 2006 preceding the imposition of the 31.5% income trust tax like that which occurred in 2005 under the minority Liberal government. The growth of income trusts could have been temporarily halted in the fall of 2006 by doing what the Liberals did on September 19, 2005: suspending advance tax rulings for proposed trusts by the Department of Finance.

There was secret lobbying in 2006 of the PM and Finance Minister by CEOs and company directors ( see Globe and Mail, Nov.2,2006 ). They wanted the trend to convert corporations to income trusts stopped due to the pressure of competition, and the reduced discretion they would have as head of an income trust. It appears that contrary arguments were not heard. How come only the opponents of trusts knew it was a good time to lobby?

To summarize—the income trust tax is an outstanding example of how not to make tax policy. It resulted in a “train wreck” whose effects continue to reverberate—perhaps in the current election campaign.

Leadership? Harper is merely the artifice of leadership

Leadership? Here’s Ten Reasons Why the Tax on Income Trusts Was a Public Policy “Train Wreck”

There’s considerable evidence to indicate the Harper government created the appearance of a crisis or phony crisis to sell the tax.

By W.T. Stanbury (Professor Emeritus, UBC) Sept. 22,2008
The Hill Times

Introduction: Let’s start with Stephen Harper’s proposition that the central issue in the current election campaign is “leadership.” Effective leadership should produce good public policies. In this piece, I argue that there are ten reasons why the huge tax on income trusts announced on October 31,2006, and made into law on June 22,2007, is the greatest public policy “train wreck” in decades. It puts in question Mr. Harper’s leadership skills, and that includes his willingness to tell the truth. The tax may also be an albatross for Finance Minister Jim Flaherty.

1. Harper Denied He Reversed Himself

The income trust tax was an obvious reversal of repeated promises by Stephen Harper when he was Opposition Leader in 2005 and during the last election campaign. This reversal was widely perceived to be a serious ethical fault and Harper provided no convincing reason why such a reversal was justified. Harper did not lie because he did not intend to mislead the public with his promises. However, on November 1,2006 in the Commons, Mr. Harper did lie about what he said during the election campaign. The clearest statement was in the party’s election platform released on January 13,2006. “A Conservative government will…preserve income trusts by not imposing any new taxes on them.”

During Question Period on November 1,2006, the PM said: “The commitment of this party ….. was a commitment to protect the income of seniors”. On November 2, the PM said, ”this government will not apologize for trying to protect the interests of individuals and a tax system that makes big business pay its fair share.” You decide.

2. Huge Capital Losses

The S&P/TSX Income Trust Index. closed on October 31, 2006 at 164.86. Two days later, the index was at 138.21. That represents a loss of $32.5 billion to the owners of trust units. Two weeks later the index was at 135.51 representing a loss of $35.6 billion. To the extent that the Trust Index later rose to higher levels does not diminish this loss for two reasons. First, some investors had to have sold shortly after the announcement—otherwise the index would not have fallen. The index reflects real transactions at real prices. Second, any subsequent increase in the index is the result of the myriad variables that affect market value, such as interest rates, and energy prices (particularly
important to the energy trusts), and the further one gets from the initial announcement date the more one has to factor in the relative price movement of other indices to which the trust index is historically correlated, i.e., the broader TSX common share stock index and/or the energy subsector thereof.

3. Using a Methodology Known to be Greatly Biased

The Department of Finance’s methodology used to estimate the so-called “tax leakage” of $500 million for the federal government in 2006 omitted the present value of deferred taxes on the 39% on trust units held in tax deferral accounts like RRSPs. The officials knew as early as March 2004 and again in the summer of 2005 that their methodology was seriously biased toward generating revenue losses when income trusts were compared to regular corporations. When these deferred taxes are included, there was no “tax leakage.” Thus a serious omission may well have resulted in misleading policy advice by officials to their Minister, and the PM.

4. An Orwellian “Tax Fairness Plan”

The stated justifications for the 31.5% tax on income trusts were at best seriously questionable. The Government’s use of language in the so-called “tax fairness plan” was reminiscent of George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth.

The government made a great effort to frame the new 31.5% tax on income trusts as a matter of “tax fairness.” A frame is a conceptual structure intended to call up a wider/deeper set of constructs that will help to define a concept or issue in the way the framer desires. It makes use people’s prior modes of classifying information and issues; it takes advantage of embedded mental habits. The objective of such framing is to “ make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” The trust tax was bundled with three small tax cuts, two of which benefited seniors. But the benefits for seniors amounted to about 2% of their capital losses on trust units.

An analysis of the new tax on some income trusts shows that the measure did not achieve “tax neutrality” as repeatedly claimed by the government. The tax added to the variegation in effective tax rates across types of business organizations, and by types of owners of these assets. The tax did not “level the playing field” as the Minister claimed so loudly and repeatedly. In fact, the tax was highly discriminatory--- it exempted REITs ( which accounted for about 15% of the total market value of trusts on the TSX), and private flow through entities like those used by many law and accounting firms.



5. Phony Crisis to “Sell” the Policy

There is considerable evidence to indicate that the Harper Government created the appearance of a crisis or phony crisis to sell the tax. The government proceeded in secret during 2006, then made a dramatic announcement of strong action. Then it justified the move by claiming that there was a crisis which forced it to act as it did. The claims were couched in emotive rhetoric, primarily by Finance Minister Flaherty. Here is one of many possible examples. On November 9,2006, before the Commons Finance Committee, Flaherty was asked: “if we had maintained the status quo, was there any threat of it driving us into the red?” He said: “Over time, yes. There was a clear and present danger that Canada was going to become an income trust economy…” Ridiculous! The claimed tax revenue losses of $500 million in 2006, were a minute fraction of corporate income tax revenues of over $37 billion, and the current surplus of over $12 billion in 2006.

A few minutes later, the Minister claimed that the “ erosion of the tax base [ said to be due to trusts ] would have meant that, to pay for… the health transfers, the post-secondary education transfers, the social transfers, and infrastructure, we would have had to tax more and more individuals and their families…” This apocalyptic rhetoric is false.

6. A Zero Revenue Tax?

The income trust tax is an extremely unusual tax.. No revenue will be collected, but the entities subject to the tax will disappear from public capital markets -- which was the apparent point of the effort. The Department of Finance never gave any estimate of the amount tax revenue the new tax was expected to generate in any of its documents. This was most unusual; the officials evidently knew that no revenue would be collected because the tax did not apply until 2011 and by then there would no longer be any of the income trusts subject to the tax.

7. Many Misleading Statements By the Minister

Finance Minister Flaherty was the point man for the trust tax. He made endless misleading statements in support of the government’s action. He claim that the tax would result in $2 billion in revenue losses for the provinces over four years was unfounded as it failed to take into account the redistribution affects among provinces. Flaherty claimed that the proposed conversion of Telus and BCE to trusts would cause huge tax losses was false since both companies had already stated that their cash corporate income taxes would be negligible for the next several years.

The Minister ( and an official!) testified on January 30,2007 that the drop in the market value of trust units immediately after the announcement of the new tax was evidence of so-called “tax leakage.” This is an elementary, but serious error. The drop was due to the introduction of the tax. Asset values and changes in taxes on those assets move inversely to each other. The fall in value would have occurred even if the tax rate on trusts had been higher than on corporations!

8. Very Large Adverse Economic Consequences

Most serious, was the evident failure of the Harper Government to anticipate the reasonably predictable adverse consequences of the tax. They have been huge (and are still being felt in September 2008). One of the most important induced effects of the tax has been (and will continue to be) a decline federal (and provincial) tax revenues due to the takeover of the devalued income trusts by entities which pay lower taxes than did the trusts, i.e., foreign interests, domestic-private equity funds, and domestic pension funds. With some leveraging, foreign owners, subject only to the 15% withholding rate, can reduce the effective tax rate to near zero.

9. Punitive Remedy, When Better Alternatives Were Available

The government’s “remedy” for the purported problems associated with the rapid growth of income trusts ( a 31.5% tax on the distributions of some publicly-traded trusts ) was far hasher than it needed to be. What were the practicable alternatives? a) Suspend the advance approval of proposed new trusts as the Liberals did on September 19, 2005 (recognizing that that such an action would likely cause a drop in the market price of income trust units due to uncertainty). – and simultaneously announce a transparent, consultative process to review the issue with a public report in three months; b) Declare a moratorium on new trusts – and simultaneously announce the same process; c) Impose a tax on income trust distributions at source of 7% to 10%. Witnesses made it clear that such a tax would be sufficient to actually level the playing field based on the effective corporate income tax rates—which vary by sector and firm; d) Apply alternative c), but make the tax refundable to Canadian residents. (This might violate the “national treatment” provision of NAFTA.); e) Lower the corporate income tax. The Liberals had started to lower the corporate income tax (and they increased the dividend tax credit) to reduce the gap between the two different legal forms of organization of businesses, trusts and corporations. On October 30,2007, Flaherty---but it came far too late for the trusts. announced much larger cuts in the corporate income tax. One expert, Dennis Bruce, pointed out that the various reductions since 2004 effectively eliminated the claimed “tax leakage’—even using Finance’s biased methodology.

10. Closed Process—But Secret Lobbying by Certain Interests.

There was no public consultation process in 2006 preceding the imposition of the 31.5% income trust tax like that which occurred in 2005 under the minority Liberal government. The growth of income trusts could have been temporarily halted in the fall of 2006 by doing what the Liberals did on September 19, 2005: suspending advance tax rulings for proposed trusts by the Department of Finance.

There was secret lobbying in 2006 of the PM and Finance Minister by CEOs and company directors ( see Globe and Mail, Nov.2,2006 ). They wanted the trend to convert corporations to income trusts stopped due to the pressure of competition, and the reduced discretion they would have as head of an income trust. It appears that contrary arguments were not heard. How come only the opponents of trusts knew it was a good time to lobby?

To summarize—the income trust tax is an outstanding example of how not to make tax policy. It resulted in a “train wreck” whose effects continue to reverberate—perhaps in the current election campaign.

LIBERALS ANNOUNCE $1 BILLION FUND TO PROMOTE MANUFACTURING

LIBERALS ANNOUNCE $1 BILLION FUND TO PROMOTE MANUFACTURING

For Immediate Release

September 19, 2008

Ignatieff: Liberals have the economic track record to stop job losses and transform industries


OSHAWA, Ontario -- A new Liberal Government will invest $1 billion in an Advanced Manufacturing Prosperity (AMP) Fund to restore manufacturing job security and strengthen Canada’s research & development, Deputy Leader Michael Ignatieff and Whitby-Oshawa Liberal candidate Brent Fullard announced today.



“Manufacturing is the core of many Canadian communities and a key to Canada’s economic productivity and prosperity,” said Mr. Ignatieff, who was campaigning today outside of his own riding of Etobicoke-Lakeshore. “Canadians deserve a government with a track record of consistent economic leadership who will lead the turn-around to stop job losses and transform our industries so that not only are they competitive, but will actually lead the world in the manufacture of cutting-edge, sustainable technologies,” he stated.



Canada’s manufacturing industry has struggled on account of the rising Canadian dollar, increased global competition and higher energy prices. A Liberal Government will address these challenges and stimulate Canada’s manufacturing sector by promoting the development of new industries and products, increasing investments in research and development, and developing a new corporate tax advantage to replace the declining currency advantage.



“The Harper Conservatives have taken a backseat on this issue, waiting until the eve of an election to begin addressing the chronic uncertainty and hardship facing thousands of workers and their families,” added Mr. Fullard. “Consider the Conservative’s overdue investment in Ford’s Windsor Engine Plant - Ford does not stand for ‘Financed On Re-election Day’, and nor should workers stand for such blatant opportunism,” he said.



As part of the AMP Fund commitment, a Liberal Government will invest $80 million to retool the Ford Engine Plant in Windsor and uphold the terms of the September 7, 2008 agreement with General Motors. Under that agreement, GM will invest $290 million in their Oshawa and St. Catharines operations to develop a gasoline-electric hybrid car and other new environmental technologies.



“Given the Conservative’s record of broken promises and inaction, which government would you rather stake Canada’s manufacturing future on?” asked Mr. Fullard.



Brent Fullard has spent over 20 years in the Canadian capital markets, most recently as Executive Managing Director and Head of Equity Capital Markets for BMO Nesbitt Burns. Mr. Fullard has previously worked in the Canadian oil and gas industry in Calgary and the Canadian automotive industry in Oshawa.



For further information:



Jill Fairbrother

Communications, Michael Ignatieff Campaign

(416) 788-0539



Alexis Levine

Campaign Manager, Michael Ignatieff Campaign

(416) 274-2417




Mark Cribari

Campaign Manager, Brent Fullard Campaign

(905) 665-3203

Canadian Medical Association Editorial Accuses Harper Conservatives In Listeriosis Outbreak

Voters I have canvassed in Whitby-Oshawa are alarmed by the risks that the Harper Government is introducing into their daily lives. Nuclear Safety Commissioner Linda Keen’s firing is also of concern to them. Nuclear and food safety, as part of overall public safety, are core values of the Liberal Party. Lax regulations do not make for a safer Canada. Lax regulations are behind the near catastrophic sub prime mortgage meltdown in the US. Something that Jim Flaherty is too short sighted to understand, since it was his (not so) bright idea to bring 40 year mortgages to Canada....read: buying a home with a 5% down payment. Might be good for property developers, however very bad for a sound Canadian economy and promoting sound personal financial planning

Canadian Medical Association Editorial Accuses Harper Conservatives In Listeriosis Outbreak
Medical journal says Harper government lowered standards
September 17, 2008
Chris Morris
THE CANADIAN PRESS

FREDERICTONˆAs the death toll rose yesterday from the national listeriosis outbreak, an editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal slammed the Harper government for undermining public health safeguards.

An elderly woman in New Brunswick became the 17th person whose death has been linked to the recall of food products from a Maple Leaf Foods plant in Toronto. It is the first confirmed case east of Ontario.

The New Brunswick Health Department said yesterday that the woman, in her early 80s, was infected with the same strain of listeria involved in the country-wide outbreak ˆ which the CMAJ editorial released yesterday describes as "the worst in the world."

"As in the Walkerton and SARS epidemics, an outbreak of this size may point to systemic failures across multiple levels," states the editorial in the latest edition of the journal, referring to the deadly water contamination eight years ago in Walkerton, Ont.

"Listeria is the biological agent, cold cuts the vector, but the ultimate cause may be found in risky government decisions."

The editorial, signed by several doctors and journal editors, states that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government has reversed much of the progress previous governments made in relation to public health.

The editorial takes aim at the Conservative government's decision to transfer inspection duties for ready-to-eat meats to the meat industry itself, while allowing listeria standards to remain lower than they are in most countries and reducing the Public Health Agency of Canada's political clout.

The editorial also makes the case for a full-scale, arm's-length public inquiry similar to those for the tainted blood scandal, Walkerton and the SARS epidemic, rather than the investigation called for by the Harper government.

"A full-scale public inquiry into the major failings of Canada's food inspection system is necessary to protect Canadians from future epidemic threats, and the Canadian public should settle for nothing less than that," the editorial states.

The woman's death in New Brunswick is the first such fatality in Atlantic Canada.

-----

In a related regulatory matter that has also caused concern, Stephen Harper's government has decided to transfer aviation safety oversight to the airline companies themselves.

Toronto Star

Decisiveness isn't always a virtue

This essay by Professor Mendes so reminds me of when I was interviewed by the CBC’s Don Newman on the income trust matter in January, 2007 and Don Newman said to me, as if to suggest that I should back down, “Mr Flaherty is very decisive about his position”. To which I responded: “Yes, decisively wrong.”

Enjoy:

Errol Mendes . Decisiveness isn't always a virtue
Errol Mendes, Ottawa Citizen Special
Published: Friday, September 19, 2008

Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former national security adviser to president Jimmy Carter coined the term "catastrophic decisiveness" to describe the leadership of George W. Bush. In the book Second Chance, Mr. Brzezinski asserts that one of the best pointers to the Bush presidency's style of leadership is summed up in that famous G.W.B. line "If you are not with us, you are against us."

The decisiveness that followed included a simplistic and hubristic call for the military might of the superpower to engage in a global war of good against evil. The catastrophic decisiveness that followed included the debacle in Iraq that was so decisively, but so prematurely pronounced as "mission accomplished."

Likewise such decisiveness led to the neglect of the real battle against terror in Afghanistan and the destruction of the U.S. as a global human rights champion after the establishment of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and the outsourcing and legitimization of torture. The impact of this style of leadership resulted in a plunge in the global solidarity that was felt for the U.S. after 9/11.

The style of leadership that can be characterized as "decisive" is often very attractive initially to an electorate as was the case in the U.S., with George W. Bush, especially in times of crisis on the scale of the terrorist attacks on 9/11. However, it is often only a question of time before what is perceived to be strong leadership results in catastrophic consequences to the country and its people.

Some may well argue that Conservative leader Stephen Harper is also in the same mould of catastrophic decisiveness as a character trait. He demonstrated early on the appealing show of strong leadership with a focused, five-point legislative agenda on taking office that he claims he achieved even if others vehemently disagree. However, the catastrophic version soon started to appear.

The appointment of David Emerson to cabinet who had just been elected as a Liberal vowing to be Mr. Harper's worst nightmare, and the appointment of Michael Fortier to cabinet via the ranks of his formerly much despised unelected Senate were early examples.

Later examples include the income trust tax that decimated an estimated $25 billion of savings of Canadians, the attacks on several independent officers of Parliament and the head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

To the list can be added the inexplicable decision to put a six-hour limit on parliamentary debate on the first extension of the Afghanistan mission, to 2009, after stating that if it did not pass he would extend the mission by a year in any case.

Then there is the decision to break his own cherished fixed elections law and call a snap election thereby thumbing his nose at the rule of law in Canada and calling into question the utility of provincial fixed elections laws across the country.

Finally, perhaps the worst and perhaps the most unforgivable example is, suddenly in the middle of an election campaign, to declare that all combat troops in Afghanistan will definitely leave by 2011, in order to win a few more votes.

This is not an announcement a responsible, strong leader makes public and known to the Taliban, who may plan their operations against our brave soldiers according to the timetable. If there are sound military and resource reasons to do so, it should be made known in the utmost secrecy to our NATO allies who can plan to fill any gaps without alerting the enemy. These are all examples, not of strong leadership, but of catastrophic decisiveness that are dangerous for Canadian democracy and sadly to our soldiers who are risking their lives in Afghanistan.

History may well judge such catastrophic decisiveness to be the catalyst of many ills that this country could face for many years. For example, against the advice of almost all the country's economists and the advice from his own bureaucrats in the department of finance, Mr. Harper has decimated the federal revenue base by cutting the GST by two percentage points. As an economist himself, Mr. Harper is aware that the most effective form of tax reduction is through personal income taxes rather than through consumption tax reduction. The Canadian federal state will lose approximately $60 billion over five years, raising the possibility of unintended deficits and providing little adjustment relief for the loss of manufacturing and forestry jobs due to the economic downturn in Central Canada.

So while early election polls show that Mr. Harper may be well ahead of the other opposition leaders in terms of strong leadership and decisiveness, the electorate may soon realize that this is morphing into the Canadian version of catastrophic decisiveness that is so similar to George W. Bush's attitude that "if you are not with us, you are against us."

What could be even more worrying is that in the case of Prime Minister Harper, he combines this form of catastrophic decisiveness with the instinct to control all the levers of government. That could make the decisiveness even more catastrophic.

Errol Mendes is a professor of constitutional, international and human rights law at the University of Ottawa.


© The Ottawa Citizen 2008

Canadians paid a high price for Flaherty's income trust reversal

September 16, 2008
Al Coates
Kitchener Waterloo Record

Remember the income-trust Alamo, the Halloween-night massacre of October 2006? Sure you do, and you got slaughtered.

The capital value of any income trusts is, almost assuredly, well down from 23 months ago when Finance Minister Jim Flaherty shocked the nation with his declaration to have the trust structure killed off by 2011.

Your trust-related income may be well down, too, because many trusts have either died, or cut their distributions or killed distributions outright.

You will recall the Flaherty rationale: Hundreds of millions of dollars, he said, were subject to "tax leakage" because the trusts paid no corporate tax. Instead, the profit/free cash doled out by trusts fell directly into the hands of investors.

Those investors who held trusts outside registered pension plans did pay tax -- at the income level -- on the proceeds; those who held them inside registered plans (such as RRSPs) paid tax on trust proceeds only as they chose to take income from their plans.

So, here we are, nearly two years later -- and smack in the middle of an election campaign -- and what hath Flaherty wrought?

Well, for starters, he continues to have older Canadian investors in a lather because he has hurt them badly. These are not necessarily wealthy people we're talking about here, although, of course, there are wealthy individuals (and wealthy institutions) heavily invested in trusts.

But these folk are, by and large, ordinary Canadians, people who invest to supplement their pensions, people who use the trusts' high payouts to offset low bank interest rates, such as those paid out in GICs and the like.

So, that's the start of it, but it is not the end. Prior to Flaherty's announcement, a number of giant corporate concerns, such as BCE and Telus and Manulife and Power Financial began to muse publicly about the prospect of converting from corporately-structured entities to trust-styled ones.

That, ultimately, is why Flaherty made his decision; he didn't want corporate Canada to go the way of the dodo via wholesale trust conversion. He feared two things: a growing "tax leakage" and the so-called "hollowing-out'' of corporate Canada.

That is fair enough, but look what has happened since as the unanticipated consequences of his decision -- many of those trusts have become takeover targets by giant private-equity players. They are being taken off the map and the radar, folded internally into big pension plans, never again to be seen as income-producing opportunities for Canadians.

I'll cite just two of many, many examples in an attempt to make the point. I will also note this, to be fair and clear: Our family owns the entities we are about to discuss here; and I will vote Conservative in the forthcoming election, as I typically do, Flaherty's actions notwithstanding.

The examples are these: BCE, the giant telecom outfit that once contemplated trust conversion, is soon to be purchased by a group of private-equity players fronted by the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan. At a $52-billion buyout price, $42.75 per share, it's the largest leveraged (debt-financed) takeout in global corporate history.

The buyout will be financed through borrowing and BCE will be taken private, dismantled, chopped into pieces and perhaps sold off in parts. Already, thousands of BCE mid-level jobs have been whacked and there will be more to come.

BCE is a cash-flow machine and its free cash will be used to finance the debt. The new owners of BCE -- teachers and its American partners -- will pay no corporate tax because, in the first place, pension plans don't pay tax, and for the other buyout partners, there also are offsetting cash-flow and debt-service factors at work. Ottawa will be lucky to see a wooden nickel in ongoing corporate tax proceeds.

The deal should close in December -- and Canadians will have lost a huge corporate entity, an investment staple, a giant, dividend-producing icon. Ontario's teachers, meanwhile, will benefit long-term because their pension operator is smart, rich and opportunistic.

Now, on to Teranet, an Ontario-based, real-estate-related trust that electronically records the details of every real-estate transaction in Ontario. Teranet has a locked-in contract with Queen's Park that runs through 2017 and it makes its money by taking a small slice from those transaction proceeds.

Teranet, until recently, was trading under $9 per unit, more than a dollar beneath its initial-offering price of $10 a unit. It, like so many other trusts, had been hurt by Flaherty's Halloween-night scare.

A few weeks back, a company called Borealis Infrastructure Management stepped up with an offer of $1.75 billion ($11 per unit) to take Teranet private, just like BCE. Borealis is an investment arm of OMERS, the pension operator of Ontario's civic employees, and its biggest recent move, until the Teranet bid, had been its buyout/privatization of the Golf Town Income Fund.

Before the Teranet deal is done, we may see three or four other bidders for the company, such is its stability and appeal. One potential bidder, announced just last week, is HOOPP, the pension fund that looks after the interests of Ontario's hospital workers.

Here's what I believe to be an interesting irony, a thread that runs through so much of this: The federal government kills a business/investment structure known as income trusts. Canadian investors, dependent upon them as income supplements, are taken by surprise and get whacked in the wallet.

Some trusts die as a result. Some lose huge chunks of their value. Some reduce their distributions. Some kill their distributions. Income trusts, faced with a 2011 guillotine, become, to a large degree, investment pariahs. And their holders get hurt.

And now, in the case of BCE and Teranet, and others past and yet to come, enter the opportunists -- the powerful, wealthy pension arms of public-service employees, to take advantage of a moment in time, to buy the companies, take them out of play, and reap the anticipated rewards no longer available to the rest of us.

There is no criticism intended here of those civil-service pension funds. They are doing exactly as they should: buying great assets at great prices. You cannot fault them for being smart, rich and ready.

Flaherty is a different story. When he knee-jerked on the trust decision, he clearly had no idea where his decision might ultimately lead. In his zeal to protect Canada's corporate structure -- and Ottawa's hefty tax take from same -- he forgot to look into the future; he failed to envision the private-equity-takeout tsunami that is now washing over the shores of the Canadian public markets.

Flaherty created this climate. His decision to kill trusts has hurt ordinary Canadians -- and hasn't done a thing to protect either corporate Canada or Ottawa's taxation interests. The nation and its citizens are paying a price for his haste and his myopia.

Al Coates is The Record's sports editor. He is also a private investor with 30 years of involvement in the Canadian public investment markets.

Ignatieff introduction of Dion

Michael Ignatieff's opening statements - Liberal infrastructure announcement

18 September 2008

Good morning. Bonjour.

We're here to talk about the Liberal plan to invest in infrastructure and rebuild the ties that bind our country together.

We're here to talk about leadership in tough economic times.

Nous sommes ici pour parler du leadership quand le climat économique s'annonce orageux.

We cannot allow Stephen Harper to define what strong leadership is in this country.

Look at his record.

Harper is the man who broke his promise to millions of Canadian investors when he wiped out income trust.

This isn't leadership – it's vandalism.

Harper is the man who has spent this country to the edge of deficit.

This isn’t leadership – it's irresponsibility.

Harper c'est l'homme qui nous a mené au bord du deficit.

C'est du leadership. C'est l'irresponsable.

Harper runs a government which told the world not to invest in Ontario.

This isn't leadership - it's an assault on Canadian workers.

Harper is the man who watched the auto sector struggling and shrugged his shoulders.

This isn't leadership - this is callousness.

Harper is the man who says everything is fine with the Canadian economy.

This isn't leadership – it's denial.

This is a man who thinks he can run Canada single-handed.

This isn't leadership – it is arrogant self-delusion.

Harper est un homme qui veut vous faire croire qu'il peut diriger le gouvernement du Canada tout seul.

C'est pas du leadership.

C'est la folie de grandeur.

This is a man whose Finance Minister was asked to invest in Canada's roads and bridges, and said: "we don't do potholes".

This isn't leadership – it is incompetence.

At a time when Canadians are getting sick of listeriosis, and food safety is in question, we have a cabinet minister making cheap jokes. That's not leadership.

That's mean-spirited incompetence.

We know that Stephen Harper loves power.

But a real leader would fire Gerry Ritz.

The problem is he doesn't like government.

In tough economic times, Canadians want their government to make sure mortgage markets are safe, our pensions and savings are secure, and our jobs won't disappear.

In tough economic times, Canadians don't need one-man rule. They need a team.

They need experienced men and women ready to practice the economics of partnership, not the politics of divide-and-rule; men and women who want to work with the provinces, not against them, to rebuild our infrastructure and get our economy going again. Le chef de cette équipe est un homme de courage et conviction.

The leader of this team is a man with guts, a man who knows who he is and what he wants, a man with a decade of experience in cabinet, a man who is ready to lead this country.

Le chef du parti liberal du Canada, the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada – Stephane Dion.

Harper's world: Linda Keen bad. Gerry Ritz good.

Ritz in hot water over wisecracks during listeria outbreak
By Steve Rennie, THE CANADIAN PRESS




OTTAWA - Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz unnerved some public servants at the height of the listeriosis crisis by resorting to gallows humour during a conference call about a public health scare that has now killed 17 people.

Ritz was also deeply concerned about the political fallout from the listeriosis crisis as the deadly disease claimed more victims in the days before the federal election was called, according to sources in on the crisis call last month.

But that concern apparently didn't stop Ritz from cracking wise while scientists, bureaucrats and political staff listened in on the Aug. 30th call.

Sources who took notes during the call said Ritz fretted about the political dangers of the crisis, before quipping:

"This is like a death by a thousand cuts. Or should I say cold cuts."

The disease was linked to cold cuts from Maple Leaf Meats.

And when told about a new death in Prince Edward Island, Ritz said:

"Please tell me it's (Liberal MP) Wayne Easter."

Easter is the Liberal critic shadowing Ritz's Agriculture Department.

About 30 people participated in the Sunday morning conference call that began after 10 a.m. EDT. Participants included scientists, senior bureaucrats and political staff.

Others on the call included communications staff from the prime minister's office, most of Ritz's staff, Health Minister Tony Clement's policy and communications advisers, and senior public servants including deputy health minister Morris Rosenberg.

Officials from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency provided updates on the disease during the conversation.

The sources who spoke to The Canadian Press did so on the condition of anonymity. Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government has been relentless in searching for and punishing anyone thought to have provided embarrassing information to reporters.

Harper Conservatives lack proper temperament for public office

Ritz in hot water over wisecracks during listeria outbreak
By Steve Rennie, THE CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA - Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz unnerved some public servants at the height of the listeriosis crisis by resorting to gallows humour during a conference call about a public health scare that has now killed 17 people.

Ritz was also deeply concerned about the political fallout from the listeriosis crisis as the deadly disease claimed more victims in the days before the federal election was called, according to sources in on the crisis call last month.

But that concern apparently didn't stop Ritz from cracking wise while scientists, bureaucrats and political staff listened in on the Aug. 30th call.

Sources who took notes during the call said Ritz fretted about the political dangers of the crisis, before quipping:

"This is like a death by a thousand cuts. Or should I say cold cuts."

The disease was linked to cold cuts from Maple Leaf Meats.

And when told about a new death in Prince Edward Island, Ritz said:

"Please tell me it's (Liberal MP) Wayne Easter."

Easter is the Liberal critic shadowing Ritz's Agriculture Department.

About 30 people participated in the Sunday morning conference call that began after 10 a.m. EDT. Participants included scientists, senior bureaucrats and political staff.

Others on the call included communications staff from the prime minister's office, most of Ritz's staff, Health Minister Tony Clement's policy and communications advisers, and senior public servants including deputy health minister Morris Rosenberg.

Officials from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency provided updates on the disease during the conversation.

The sources who spoke to The Canadian Press did so on the condition of anonymity. Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government has been relentless in searching for and punishing anyone thought to have provided embarrassing information to reporters.

Ritz emailed an apology that he intended to deliver publicly in suburban Ottawa later Wednesday.

"It was a highly stressful time," he said in prepared remarks. "Many people were working countless hours and attending countless meetings to keep on top of the situation. In that context, I made a couple of spur of moment offhand comments. In particular, one about my official opposition critic, whom I have already called to apologize.

"My comments were tasteless and completely inappropriate. I apologize unreservedly."

But Ritz was less contrite when he was asked about his comments after his flight from Saskatoon touched down at the Ottawa airport Wednesday afternoon.

A bearded man with Ritz jostled with journalists as the agriculture minister beelined through the terminal to a waiting sedan. At one point the man grabbed a reporter's recorder and jabbed at the off button.

For two minutes Ritz stared dead ahead as he was peppered with questions about the conference call. His only words were clipped.

"Not right now, guys," he said.

Then: "Get out of my face, please."

Listeria can cause listeriosis, a foodborne illness that causes high fever, headache, neck stiffness and nausea that is of particular concern to the elderly, pregnant women and the infirm.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Ritz's remarks were beyond the pale.

"It was clearly inappropriate," said Kory Teneycke. "It was intended as a joke, but some things are not appropriate to joke about."

He also said Ritz had called Wayne Easter to offer a personal apology.

So far, 17 deaths have been linked to the recall of food products from a Maple Leaf Foods plant in Toronto. There have been 14 deaths in Ontario, and one each in British Columbia, Alberta and New Brunswick.

Sources say the Privy Council Office requested and chaired the conference call. This call was chaired by Daniel Jean, the deputy secretary to cabinet in the Privy Council Office.

That office, headed by Kevin Lynch, co-ordinates government policy and harnesses that policy to the formidable power of the public service.

The conversation on Aug. 30 began with talk of the mounting death toll and trends in the spread of the disease.

Sources say Ritz began the call by asking: "Are there any more bombs out there?" - implying any politically damaging news.

But discussion soon shifted to communications and how best to frame the government's message.

There was even talk of Liberal Leader Stephane Dion's Green Shift plan, sources say.

Ritz was not the only cabinet minister to quip about the food crisis.

The plant, where the listeria bacterium was found embedded deep inside slicing equipment, was closed Aug. 20 and reopened Wednesday.

Production resumed under a phased-in period and tests will be done before any food is released to public, said Maple Leaf Foods CEO Michael McCain.

"We have learned from this tragic experience and we can and will do more," said McCain.

"I continue to believe very strongly that Canada has one of the best food-safety systems in the world."

An editorial this week in the Canadian Medical Association Journal blasted the Harper government for undermining public health safeguards.

Liberal contender takes on Flaherty over income trusts

Candidate profile: Brent Fullard

Wednesday, September 17, 2008
By Olivia Glauberzon
Investment Executive


As part of our coverage of the federal election, Investment Executive profiles candidates who are working or who have worked in the financial services industry.

Here we look at Brent Fullard, Liberal candidate in the Ontario riding of Whitby--Oshawa.

A Western movie set was the last thing Brent Fullard expected when he attended the unveiling of the National Seniors Council last March.

Watching Senator Marjory LeBreton and Monte Solberg, Minister of Human Resources and Social Development, among other officials, take the stage in St. Catharines, Ont., Fullard says, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

“They had all these MPs and cabinet ministers there for the announcement…and guess what? They only named one person for an eight person board.” Fullard says. “It looked like a Hollywood movie set that’s a false facade for a western.”

It was that ceremony, Fullard says, which fueled his motivation to run against Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance, in this coming election.

“People have lost $35 billion of their hard earned money to income trust taxes,” Fullard says. “I was inclined to take the matter into my own hands.”

Fullard had first learned of Flaherty’s plan to tax trusts on Halloween of 2006. He says he was shocked the Conservatives had reneged on their election platform.

“The promise not to raid seniors’ nest eggs went out the window,” Fullard says. “Then, the finance minister without any consultation from stake holders arbitrarily imposes a 31.5% tax on income trusts.”

Investors still pay taxes on their trust dividends, he says, only at a later date when they cash out their RRSPs.

“They were misleading people and I wasn’t going to let that go,” Fullard says. “I was inclined to take the matter into my own hands.”

As a result, Fullard formed the Canadian Association of Income Trust Investors, which now represents over 2.5 million investors.

But Fullard’s desire to lead change is nothing new.

His questioning attitude began in the 1970s. He had just completed his MBA at Queen’s University and chose to work on the line at the General Motors Car Assembly Plant in Oshawa, Ont. over an offer in consulting.

“My goal was to influence car design,” Fullard says. “But Oshawa took their instructions from Detroit … I wanted to go work at the Detroit of somewhere.”

From then on, Fullard aimed to work in upper management.

Born and raised in Toronto, Fullard moved back to the city with his wife, in 1984, where he took on his first job in financial services at Merrill Lynch Canada.

Starting out as an investment banker, Fullard rose to vice president over the next eight years. In 1991, he made his move to Burns Fry, now known as BMO Nesbitt Burns.

After making his way up the BMO ladder to head of equity capital markets, Fullard decided there were no more corporate rungs to climb.

It was time to explore his own creative investment strategies and the corporate setting, he says, held him back. In 2003, he started his own Toronto-based company called Catalyst Asset Management, which he still runs today.

However, as a semi-retired citizen with three teens, Fullard says, life is no longer just about earning big returns. It’s about justice.

“I’ve always been one to go against the grain,” he says. “I’m more interested in doing the right thing than what’s expeditious.”

IE

Woman loses home due to Harper and Flaherty's income trust eviction notice

Please see CBC Radio link in which retiree Marilyn reveals that she lost her home due to Harper and Flaherty’s income trust betrayal

Just image the outrage when Canadians learn that Harper/Flaherty’s tax leakage argument for their income trust policy is a complete fabricated lie.. Harper will be relegated to the political junk heap, where he belongs:


Click here and scroll down to economy and listen to Marilyn's plight at 32:00

Anyone can bemoan negative outcomes in retrospect, few are those who can foretell them

This subprime mortgage meltdown was a house of cards waiting to happen. The extent of the abuses that underlay and the myriad ways in which financial products were designed to leverage the returns, and more insidiously the risks, makes the whole thing a disgrace and a sad commentary on the world’s financial system that became enormously dependent on people being able to service debt that they had no hope of servicing in the first place.

Such is the case with leveraged buyout loans and the needless and reckless introduction of debt into Canada’s economy.. Such is clearly the case with BCE. The LBO of BCE is a totally absurd transaction that is fueled by greed and the need for Investment Banking Fees and Employee Stock Options gains with zero commensurate accomplishments to justify those gains......and the hubris of Teachers’ management. It is no coincidence that Maple Leaf Foods is the source of the lysteriosis outbreak. Maple Leaf Foods is another company whose goals and strategies and priorities were being laid down by the “stock jockey” mindset of people who run a pension fund, and for whom ROE means everything and food safety took a back seat.

It is for reasons like this that the Federal Pension Regulations PROHIBIT pension funds from owning more than 30% of the votes of a Canadian company. So what do the “stock jockeys” at Teachers do? They break the very spirit of that law, by creating some bogus arrangement with an ex employee, Morgan Mccague, to circumvent these rules.

Circumvent these rules? Sound like the very thing that caused the subprime fiasco.

Meanwhile the circumventing of these rules by Teachers in the case of BCE is having vastly negative consequences on Canada’s economy, such as:

Loss of $800 million per year in tax revenue
Loss of 2,500 high paying jobs (expected to rise to 4000)
Massive debt being introduced into Canadian economy at the worst point in the economic cycle ($44 billion in total for BCE, and increase of $32 billion from current debt levels)
Vastly diminished capital investment plan for Canada’s so called leading telco
Increased service costs to consumers
Reduced to a junk bond issuer at the cost to existing bondholders of $1 billion and vastly increasing BCE’s cost of capital
Displacement of average investors. BCE used to be Canada’s most widely held company, now it will have 4 owners, 3 of them US.
Former investors were taxable Canadians, new owners are not
Reneging on $1 billion in dividends payable to shareholders and promised to shareholders

Teachers’ should not be allowed to break its pension rules in such a blatant , crude and manipulative way. That’s how sub-prime mortgage meltdowns have their start. The Chairman of the CRTC was completely unimpressed by this phony arrangement devised by Teachers’ . As you know, I expressed that view before the CRTC.

Where is Ottawa? Where is Jim Prentice and Stephen Harper? They approved this transaction with the full knowledge of all the abuses that it represented and the negative consequences that it entailed I know, since I sent Prentice these very observations is letter dated February 26, 2008. It was hand delivered to him by the Chief of Staff of a former Prime Minister.

Etch a sketch Harper

Charles Adler: Albertans expect Stephen Harper to obey his own laws

Charles Adler: ''Harper was treating Canadian law like an old "etch-a-sketch," just shaking it up and changing it on a whim.''

Dion on the morally bankrupt Stephen Harper

From today’s Globe:

“There is a breach of trust between Stephen Harper and the people of Newfoundland and Labrador,” Mr. Dion said. “What he did for the people Newfoundland and Labrador he may do everywhere – everywhere – in Canada..”

The Liberal Leader said that Mr. Harper did the same to seniors who put their money into income trusts, believing the Conservative Leader's promise that he would not tax them, but who were then his by his government's heavy tax on the investment units.

“We Liberals, we will correct this terrible mistake,” Mr. Dion.

“How can we trust a man whose first gesture had been to [break] his promise when he decided to appoint a non-elected Senator as a minister, and his last gesture has been to [break] his promise when he decided to rush to an election when he had a law on fixed election dates.”

“This man has broken his promise again and again and again. We cannot have trust in him. We need to have a prime minister we can trust, and it's what I will provide to Canada,” Mr. Dion said.

Mr. Harper's Conservatives have faced a backlash ever since his government went back on its promise to allow the province to keep all future offshore oil and gas revenues under the Atlantic Accord, without clawbacks under the equalization system.

Mr. Williams, a highly popular Tory premier, has launched an anybody-but-Conservative campaign that is causing Mr. Harper's team grief on the campaign trail.

The Liberals have hopes of knocking off Conservative MP Fabian Manning in Avalon riding, and the Tories are also facing a tough fight to keep two St. John's seats vacated by two retiring MPs, Norm Doyle and Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn. But the NDP is also making a stiff challenge is St. John's.

“It's not only because of the ABC that we will vote Liberal. It is not only because we cannot vote Conservative – it's impossible after what Harper did. It's because we Liberals, we have the best team, we have the best plan, we have the best leadership, and the best vision for Newfoundland and Labrador.”

Mr. Dion also launched into an attack on Mr. Harper's economic management, arguing Canada has lagged other major developed economies in recent months, and has had its worst economic performance since Brian Mulroney was in power in 1991.

He sought to sell his green shift as a plan that will cut income taxes and provide credits to middle-income and low-income Canadians, arguing that taxing carbon fuels instead will be good for individuals, the economy, and the environment.

“Cut income taxes. Shift to pollution. As simple as that.”

But one of Mr. Dion's best prospects to gain a Newfoundland seat, St. John's South-Mount Pearl Liberal candidate Siobhan Coady, said voters in her riding don't really understand the “green shift” yet.

There's been a lot of “misinformation” about the green shift, she said, so when it comes up, there's questions. “Really, it's more around the issue of ‘what is it?' They want to know more about it.”

She also conceded that a lot of Newfoundlanders heat their homes with oil. People accept that they will get tax cuts or refundable credits to offset it, she said, but she has asked the party to adjust the plan so they get it up front, before the bills come in.

“That's a message that we've sent, that I've sent, to the Liberal Party,” she told reporters just before Mr. Dion made an announcement beside the St. John's harbour.

But she said it's not the number one priority for voters at the door, in a province where there's a mood of anger at Mr. Harper.

“More often than not, it's about Mr. Harper and his broken promises,” Ms. Coady said.

Harper's broken promise of the day for Sept 15th

......as Harper mints new promises to break


September 15, 2008

Conservative Platform Promise of the Day....broken:

Capital Gains Tax

"Eliminate the capital gains tax for individuals on the sale of assets when the proceeds are reinvested within six months. Canadians who invest, or inherit cottages or family heirlooms, should be able to sell those assets and plough their profits back into the economy without taking a tax hit." ("Stand Up For Canada," Conservative Party of Canada Federal Election Platform 2006, p. 16)

I can't think of worse circumstance for BCE to be saddled with $44 billion of debt?

Lehman may face failure, Merrill may be bought
Sun Sep 14, 2008 8:40pm EDT

By Dan Wilchins and Glenn Somerville

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The ruptured U.S. financial system was facing an unprecedented shakeup on Sunday that could lead to the failure of Lehman Brothers, the takeover of Merrill Lynch & Co Inc and big asset sales by big insurer American International Group.

60% of voters undecided...perhaps exposing the IT fraud would help?

Nanos September 12, 2008

Very firm 40%

Somewhat firm 30%
Somewhat not firm 7%
Not at all firm 10%
Unsure 6%

Remind me....which rocket scientist launched this lawsuit?

Harper seeks to delay Cadman lawsuit during election campaign
Last Updated: Friday, September 12, 2008 | 4:40 PM ET
The Canadian Press

Prime Minister Stephen Harper wants to put off a hearing in his $3.5-million defamation suit against the Liberal party because it is scheduled for the middle of the federal election campaign.

Harper's lawyers filed an emergency motion Friday asking Ontario Superior Court Justice Charles Hackland to consider the bid to adjourn the case during the campaign.

The lawyers argue that the election distracts Harper from the details of the suit he filed over an allegation that Conservatives attempted to bribe a sitting MP in 2005.

Harper sued in March 2008 after the Liberal party posted website headlines suggesting the prime minister knew that two senior Conservatives attempted to bribe Independent MP Chuck Cadman before a critical Commons confidence vote in May 2005.

In a book published earlier in 2008, B.C. author Tom Zytaruk quotes Cadman's widow, Dona, as saying her husband told her that Conservatives offered him a $1-million life insurance policy in return for his vote against the Liberals.

Cadman, who had long represented the suburban Vancouver riding of Surrey North, voted with the Liberals and died shortly afterward.

None of the allegations have been proven in court.

The election is Oct. 14.
© The Canadian Press, 2008
The Canadian Press

Flaherty: Your tax leakage analysis is fraudulent

Close up at Your tax leakage analysis is fraudulent

Harper's FRAUD about tax leakage, set to do him in

Today's Ottawa Sun Cartoon

See also Your tax leakage analysis is fraudulent

Harper's complete and utter economic hypocrisy

"Harper Vows to Loosen Foreign Investment Rules in Canada"

Well, this policy pronouncement is as hypocritical as they get.....and as politically inane as they come.

Harper and Flaherty argued that one of the reasons that they killed income trusts was because too many foreigners owned them and they only collected 15% withholding tax on the “distribution”. So Harper killed Canada’s best ever capital markets investment vehicle in order to do what? Have them acquired in LBOs with a mountain of debt. And to facilitate that outcome, they did what? Reduced the 15% withholding tax on “interest” to ZERO. Does the word hypocritical come to mind?

Now Harper is arguing that we must loosen foreign investment rules in Canada. The man is mad and reckless, or is he simply taking his instructions from the Boys at Teachers’ Providence Capital, Madison Dearborn and Merrill Lynch Capital Partners who simply want to punt BCE into a larger buying spare by eliminating foreign investment rules. So completes the entirety of my predictions of June 2007 as to what the ultimate sequence of events would be for BCE......and the rest of Canada.

Instead of flipping Canadian companies for profit, it’s time we flipped Harper out of office for a better tomorrow



Harper Vows to Loosen Foreign Investment Rules in Canada


By Theophilos Argitis and Alexandre Deslongchamps

Sept. 12 (Bloomberg) --

Stephen Harper: Canada's leading expert on wreaking havoc

Rather than being guided by principles, Stephen Harper is merely guided by politics. Base politics at that.

Today we learn that Stephen Harper has resorted to cries of calamity as if to suggest the Liberal’s Green Shift will wreak havoc on the Canadian economy and if that weren’t implausible enough, he goes on to fear monger that Dion’s plan will undermine national unity. Harper would know, as he is the expert in both of these fields. The Liberals Green Plan when viewed in terms of the overall Canadian economy is equivalent to 1-2% of our overall economy. Meanwhile Canadians demand action on the environment. How can Canada’s economy be imperiled by the 1-2% which, at the margin, is at play? That is an implausibility.

Meanwhile Harper himself is Canada’s leading Wreaker of Havoc. His Blue Shaft policy on income trusts involved a growing and vibrant market that had profound social and competitiveness aspects associated with it that involved a "mere" 10% of the overall capitalization of the TSX?

The Blue Shaft led to a litany of negative outcomes that have only begun to work their highly corrosive way through our economy, starting with the $2 billion in lost annual tax revenue to Ottawa (soon to rise to $7.5 billion), loss of economic sovereignty , loss of jobs, loss of competitiveness, loss of investment choice and the loss of billions in Canadians’ hard earned savings.

On the question of national unity being possibly at play here, Harper himself is undermining the very basis of Canada’s unity with his proposed seat redistribution in Parliament that will see Ontario with 18 fewer seats that it would be entitled to under the principle of representation by population. Once again, on that matter, Harper reverts to politics and completely abandoning principles. Those who deign speak of principle, like Dalton McGuinty, are summarily denounced as the “Small man of Confederation.” To which my response would simply be “Well, if the shoe fits Mr Harper, then wear it.”

More of Stephen Harper’s endless stream of hypocritical rhetoric and politics through divisiveness.

So what are we observing at play here? Principles or Politics?

Provided the media gets its act together, this election will be all about Canada’s future, and whether our destiny will be governed by Dion’s Principles or Harper’s Politics? Time for a regime change, a term which best describes why Stephen Harper is the last politician in Canada where you would want to invest your vote.


Dion's green plan would 'wreak havoc'
In his sharpest attack yet, Harper says the Liberal environmental platform would destroy jobs and undermine national unity

By MURRAY CAMPBELL , STEVEN CHASE , GLORIA GALLOWAY and JANE TABER
Globe and Mail
September 12, 2008

Re: Harper finds a new role for the RCMP in this year's election

RCMP block media access to PM Harper: Report

Robert Fife - CTV Newsnet - Closed captioning: Well I'm telling you the prime minister's office is not letting us talk to the prime minister. And they've used the R.C.M.P. To keep us away.


>>> We have robert fife now who is traveling with the prime minister. I
understand you may actually be at a vineyard. Bob are you there?

>> I am, yep.

>> Kate: You're at the vineyard. Is that distracting you?

>> Yep. And the pmo is refusing to let us get near the prime minister.

>> Kate: Why?

>> We're live now?

>> Kate: Yes, I'm talking to you live on the air, bob.

>> Okay. Well I'm telling you the prime minister's office is not letting
us talk to the prime minister. And they've used the R.C.M.P. To keep us
away. They actually asked -- they said let us do our photo op. We've
already responded to this issue. And we went with the cameras to the
vineyard, then they got the R.C.M.P. To push the media away. Not allow
us to ask the prime minister about why -- his reaction to the suspension
of ryan sparrow for what he said about suggesting that jim davis was
only raising the issue of the death of his son in afghanistan because
he's a liberal supporter and was trying to embarrass the prime minister.
Earlier, a few moments ago, as i reported, senator marjory lebreton
whose the campaign co-chair had said that it's -- this was an
unspeakable tragedy and it was wrong for mr. Sparrow to use it for
political purposes. Of course we're trying to get the prime minister to
comment on that. But his political aides absolutely refusing to let us
get near the prime minister. And then instructing the R.C.M.P. To pull
us away, to push us away so that we couldn't ask the prime minister any
questions.

>> Kate: Well, i mean, you're going to be seeing him at some point today
getting close i would think.

>> Well we're going to try again before the rally. But -- anyway, for
some reason they do not want the prime minister to comment on this
controversy. And as i said, the political aides to the prime minister
refusing to let us nearby. Ordering the R.C.M.P. To keep me and --
particularly me and the camera crew away from the prime minister.

>> Kate: Is that because you broke the story, bob?

>> No. Because I'm insisting that we get a reaction from the prime
minister. This is an election campaign. An election campaign -- in
election campaigns we don't go soft on any political party. And the
prime minister's office seems to think that we should just forget this
issue. Well, we have an obligation as journalists to get reaction from
the prime minister, given the fact that their campaign worker made a
serious allegation and was suspended for it. And that's -- i don't know
if there's much more you can say. I'm going to go into the roo right
now, kate, and try to -- again try to get a reaction from the prime
minister. We'll see if the R.C.M.P. Is against us again.

>> Kate: All right and we will come to that rally live and see how
everyone does when we get there. Thanks, bob good luck. >> You're
welcome.

Calgary Herald rebuked by reader

Keep the promises!

Calgary Herald
Published: Thursday, September 11, 2008
Re:"Bush planning to boost Afghan force; Up to 4,000 more soldiers pledged," Sept. 10.

Stephen Harper promises Canadian troops will be out of Afghanistan by 2011. Last election he also promised to honour the Atlantic Accord, to not tax Income Trusts, to have fixed election dates, to stop MPs from crossing the floor and to not make patronage appointments to the Senate. He started breaking these promises the first day on the job. His word is worthless as he cannot be trusted. Yet the Herald keeps publishing what he says as if it is gospel. I, at least, will not be fooled this time like I was the last election.

Stuart Smith,

Calgary

Question for Danny Williams: Will "fraud" actually appear on the ballot?

Don't vote for 'fraud' Harper, Newfoundland's Williams says
Posted: September 10, 2008, 1:29 PM by Chris Boutet

The always-incendiary premier of Newfoundland, Danny Williams, took to the podium to launch a renewed offensive against Prime Minister Stephen Harper today, calling the Conservative leader a "fraud" who should not be trusted and urging Canadians to vote against the party in the Oct. 14 election. From Canwest:

Williams, who has launched an “Anything-but-Conservative” campaign to defeat Harper’s MPs, warned Canadians of “dire consequences” if they give the Conservative leader a majority government.

“I beg you and plead with you today to stop and think and decide if that is what this country deserves,” Williams told a group of business leaders in a televised address in St. John’s, N.L. “If you believe this country deserves better, then you know what to do — it’s as easy as ABC.”

However, he stopped short of endorsing any one political party or candidate as an alternative.


Williams used the occasion to tout his province’s economic advancement and vent his government’s frustrations with what he termed a swath of broken promises by the federal government. Among the latter, he cited a broken promise to leave non-renewable resources out of the equalization formula, a move he said is costing his province $10-billion.

Harper and Layton: just a couple of "cave" men.....devoid of ethical judgment or personal conviction

GLORIA GALLOWAY , DANIEL LEBLANC and STEVEN CHASE AND JANE TABER

Globe and Mail Update

September 10, 2008 at 2:24 PM EDT

The political path has been cleared for Elizabeth May to participate in the televised leaders debates after first NDP Leader Jack Layton and minutes later Conservative Leader Stephen Harper withdrew threats to boycott.

The reversals could be a pivotal point in this federal election campaign.

Dogged by protesters and divisions within the ranks of his own party, Mr. Layton told reporters during a visit to a solar-panel company here Wednesday that the debate about the debate has become an unwanted distraction.

“I have only one condition for this debate, that the Prime Minister is there, because I want to debate the issues with him,” said Mr. Layton. “I don't want to be debating the debate forever.”

Mr. Layton's change of heart put the onus squarely on the shoulders of Mr. Harper to decide where the block against Ms. May will remain.

Conservative spokesman Kory Teneycke said the Tories are dropping their opposition to Ms. May participating in the debate, saying they don't want to be the odd man out on the matter.

Spotlight shines on five GTA ridings with upcoming federal election

Jaime Pulfer and 680News staff Toronto | Monday, September 8th, 2008

Toronto - Local Toronto ridings are expected to kick some major sizzle into the federal election, with five key battlegrounds to watch across the GTA.

The Whitby-Oshawa riding, whose manufacturing sector has been walloped by a hurricane of job cuts recently, is one to watch.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty will try to keep it Conservative, running against former General Motors worker and Liberal candidate, Brent Fullard.

Mississauga-Streetsville is another Conservative story with a twist -- Wajid Khan crossed the floor from the Liberals after the last election. Many are wondering if he'll get the same support as a Tory.

There'll be drama in Halton, as Garth Turner won that riding as a Conservative in 2006, but was kicked out of caucus for being too outspoken and is now running as a Liberal.

Parkdale-Highpark and Trinity-Spadina are currently held by the NDP, but both were previously Liberal territory

Dion campaign stop in Pickering

Media Release
September 9, 2008

Liberals will clean up Flaherty financial mess

PICKERING, Ontario – Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion today slammed Finance Minister Jim Flaherty for the Conservative government’s dismal mismanagement of the country’s finances.

“Canada’s economy is the worst in the G7. Canada has now had its worst performance in 17 years – since Brian Mulroney. The economy is slumping. Hard working Canadians are losing their jobs and what does this government do? Insult them and abandon them with laissez-faire, I don’t care policies,” Mr. Dion said.

“Conservatives do not understand the 21st century economy. The cost of fossil fuels is only going to go up. The only long term solution is to invest in the green economy and renewable alternatives. The Conservative short-sighted approach will only delay the inevitable.

“A Liberal government will invest in partnership with Canadians by cutting taxes for families, investing in the manufacturing sector and building strong jobs. By building Canada as a leader in the green economy we will build a strong economy for today and the next generation.”

Mr. Dion made his comments at a Liberal rally with Ajax-Pickering MP Mark Holland and was joined by Liberal Finance Critic John McCallum and Associate Finance Critic Martha Hall Findlay in welcoming the newest member of the Liberal team, candidate Brent Fullard, who is running in Mr. Flaherty’s riding of Whitby-Oshawa.

Mr. Fullard founded the Canadian Association of Income Trust Investors to fight Mr. Flaherty's decision to tax income trusts after the Conservatives promised not to.

“As a former General Motors employee and leading income trust investor advocate, Mr. Fullard knows all too well how Mr. Flaherty and his government have betrayed and abandoned Canadians,” said Mr. Holland. “Mr. Flaherty and his Prime Minister left investors bleeding and auto workers unemployed. This is not good economic management.

“It was a Liberal government that swept up after the last Conservative government, and we will do it again. We will build on our party’s solid history of job creation, balanced budgets and progressive tax cuts – working with Canadians, not against them.”

Mr. McCallum pointed out how in the dying days of the Harper government, Conservatives racked up almost $9 billion in pre-election spending promises – including a couple of funding announcements for the ailing auto sector.

“This government thinks it can ignore the auto sector for two-and-a-half years and then make a photo-op announcement on the eve of an election and everything will be alright,” said Mr. McCallum. “This is the same government that, prior to the writ dropping, refused to make investments in auto sector capital and innovation, calling them ‘band-aid solutions.’ The result of that negligence has been devastating, and nowhere has that devastation been felt more than in this region of Ontario.”

Ms. Hall Findlay said that while Ontario sits in the midst of the biggest economic downturn in years, Minister Flaherty does nothing but attack his home province.

“He called Ontario ‘the last place to invest’ and Premier Dalton McGuinty the ‘small man of Confederation’ for defending the principles of democracy,” she said. “He told Ontario mayors that he was not in the ‘pothole business’ and dismissed the huge infrastructure deficit they face by calling them ‘whiners.’

“The residents of Ontario – and all of Canada – need a government that is going to stick by them and work with them every day to find long-term solutions, not sit back and insult them in their time of need,” she said.

Mr. Fullard said he was proud to be joining the Liberal team because of Mr. Dion’s plan to build the Canada of the future through partnership with Canadian businesses.

“Canadians have had enough of Mr. Flaherty’s broken promises,” he said. “The income trust fiasco – which cost investors some $35 billion – is just one of a string of betrayals that Mr. Flaherty is going to have to explain to the residents of Whitby-Oshawa. Even worse is that this broken promise is predicated on the false premise that income trusts cause tax leakage.”

CAITI News Alert - Election 2008

Dear CAITI Member:

By way of full disclosure I voted for the Stephen Harper Conservative government in 2006. I did so with some serious reservations. Turns out those reservations were well justified, because Stephen Harper promised in the last election:

“You know where the Liberals stand on raiding seniors nest eggs. Whether it is death taxes, or taxing income trusts, a new Conservative government will never let this happen”

Well happen it did, Mr. Harper.

Worse than the broken promise however, was that his premise for breaking his promise, namely tax leakage, is a totally false and fabricated concept.

I have known this since the afternoon of November 1, 2006 when I first came into possession of the report entitled “Tax Revenue Implications of Income Trusts”. This was the study performed by HLB Decision Economics in collaboration with the Department of Finance duirng the Goodale Consultative Round and only made possible because Ralph Goodale approached the matter by way of public consultation. Jim Flaherty did not.

However what Jim Flaherty foolishly ignored was that his policy argument of tax leakage had already been proven to be a lie, even before he began holding it out as his sole policy justification that the media was only too pleased to lap up.

I refuse to be lied to by MY government. As such, the Harper persons in office are no government of mine. Like me, all of you have been lied to on this matter and have paid a price. A price measured by loss of retirement savings, loss of investment choice and a loss of faith in our government, our capital markets and media, who have failed us miserably.

It is for this reason, that I felt compelled to take matters into my own hands and run for office in the riding of Whitby-Oshawa. This is the riding of Jim Flaherty, Canada’s most deceitful, negligent and incompetent Finance Minister to ever hold office.

Ignoring the losses that you have experienced, here is some of the havoc he has wreaked onto our economy with his Tax Failure Plan:

creation of a two tiered pension system in Canada, that places 25% of Canadians who are already privileged by participating in a pension plan, at an even greater economic advantage than the 75% who are not, since their pension plans (unlike our RRSPs) can easily avoid the onerous 31.5% tax by merely buying devalued public income trusts and holding them privately and avoid any new 31.5% tax or any growth restrictions imposed by Flaherty. This explains the bid last week by pension fund OMERs for Teranet, and a whole host of similar “tax arbitrage” trades since Halloween 2006. This is grossly unfair and grossly inequitable
to compound this gross disparity further, Flaherty also granted those Canadians with PENSION income splitting, namely the ability to split their income for tax purposes with their spouse. This only benefits 12-14% of seniors, and hence is grossly unfair and inequitable
to further compound the inequity of this situation, foreign private equity firms can replicate the “carve out” that Flaherty granted the pension plans described above by simply acquiring these undervalued trusts presently held by us, under a leveraged buyout scheme. This is similar to what has occurred with BCE, except BCE skipped one step
these activities to date have caused over $90 billion of takeovers in less than two years, largely done by the above two groups and by others such as Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka Shing or middle eastern oil giant Abu Dhabi energy. It is in this respect that all Canadians are losing from this policy, as it is providing material incentives for foreigners to acquire devalued trusts formerly owned by taxpaying Canadians, resulting in a serious erosion to Canada’s tax base, at a time when we can least afford it.
this takeover activity has resulted in the loss of $2 billion in annual taxes to Ottawa. Once the entire sector is bought out in this manner, the tax loss will rise to $7.5 billion per annum, the equivalent of a 1.5% GST increase.
this outcome is as inevitable as it is avoidable. My goal is pursuing public office, is to ensure that this wholly unwelcome outcome is avoided.
keep in mind, all under a situation where no tax leakage existed in the first place! Hoe much more incompetent does it get than that?
in addition these foreign buyouts and large leveraged buyouts like BCE are being facilitated by another measure of Flaherty’s creation, namely his elimination of the 15% withholding tax on leveraged buyout loans

I could go on forever, but I will not. I have three requests that I would like all of you to all take very seriously and do your utmost to achieve:

(1) Ensure your voice is heard in this election. Like me, do not take no for an answer. Your vocal attendance at the all-candidates meetings in your riding will have a material effect on the outcome of the election in your riding and across the country. This is the means by which you can influence the voting choices of others. Now is not the time for CAITI billboards and CAITI ads in the paper. Your personal and active participation is a vastly more powerful medium. You have all the arguments listed above to make our case. When you get the inevitable lame response from the Conservative candidate or the NDP candidate, whose two parties acting together made this atrocious policy possible, then you simply ask them for the proof. When they offer you no proof, you then confront them with the fact that the absence of proof only proves that this policy fails miserably on the test of accountability and transparency. 18 pages of blacked out documents issued under the toothless Access to Information Act, that were subsequently demanded to be returned is only proof of a government and two parties with something to hide, namely their utter incompetence and unfitness for office.

(2) Ensure you vote, and ensure other like minded people vote. Make the event of voting into a celebration of your democratic rights. Gather your friends and family and vote en masse. Win or lose in this election, we aren’t going away.

(3) Please consider donating to my campaign. I have worked over 2,500 hours on a voluntary basis on this issue on your behalf. The next five weeks will be ten times more important than the last 90 odd weeks I have worked this issue. You can donate on line at :

https://www.liberal.ca/donate_riding_e.aspx?riding=35099

Thank you in advance. Wish me luck. Now is the time to rescue OUR country from those who are determined to destroy it and to rid ourselves of the enemy from within.



Brent Fullard
President and CEO
Canadian Association of Income Trust Investors
www.caiti.info

647 505-2224 (cell)

Did the Media Bosses fix the 2008 election outcome, like the RCMP did in 2006?

Re: Don Martin: Elizabeth May has received a blessing in disguise

Don Martin is missing the point entirely. I don’t think this matter is judged by “consolation prizes” of Don’s assessment. The ethical judgment call is whether Elizabeth May is better off by debating versus not debating. The issue is whether democracy is better off with all credible parties debating versus not allowing certain credible parties to debate.

We are the losers. Don misses this fundamental point. Andrew Coyne did not, in his piece of today “Democracy loses”.

Nothing about this is difficult to understand. The media may have fixed this election’s outcome in a way in which the RCMP did in 2006. They need to be stopped.




Don Martin
National Post

Short of a paralyzing October 14th blizzard featuring a guest appearance by freezing rain to underline the climate change message, the best news for Green Party leader Elizabeth May’s campaign so far was being kicked off the television debates.

Debate in that low-ratings shouting match and she’d be the afterthought -- the final paragraph of analysis, doomed to be a fifth leader overshadowed by pundits preoccupied with picking a winner between the Stephen Harper and Stephane Dion standoff.

But as the only national party leader kicked off the debate, undeservedly so in my view, she’ll be able to hold court before, during and after the debate as a media darling, shut out by a television consortium bullied into silence by the Harper Conservatives.

Sure she misses that introductory opportunity to wow Canadians who might be so disgusted with the national parties they turn green enough to cry ‘mayday’ and vote accordingly.

But the media love a victim. And because it was an unjust and unfair move by Big Television, she deserves and she’ll get kid-glove treatment.

There’s no debating the winner of the leader’s debate now. It’s Elizabeth May.

Is this an endorsement of Brent Fullard's candidacy by Jim Flaherty's Communications Director.....Dan Miles?

From: Dan.Miles@fin.gc.ca [mailto:Dan.Miles@fin.gc.ca]
Sent: August 18, 2008 7:50 AM
To: randy.meyer@shaw.ca;
brent.fullard@rogers.com

Subject: Re: The trade in value of a Dan Miles promise

Hey Randal,

I am absolutely serious about getting Brent a job..... Focus.....

Thanks

Jim Had His Chance .ca

Parties use the Internet to troll for voters
Aimed At Youth

David Akin,
National Post
September 09, 2008

OTTAWA - With no small amount of glee, Conservative party operatives -- usually young and mostly male -- have spent months assembling video footage of just about every dumb thing ever said by Stephane Dion and other Liberals.

Early this morning, they unleashed most of that video at a new, often-nasty, anti-Dion site called www.notaleader.ca.The Liberals, too, are launching attack sites. One, aimed at voters in British Columbia, is at www.promisebreakers.caand went online yesterday. It compares the 2006 Conservative campaign platform with some of the government's actions on softwood lumber, Senate re-form and other issues. Another Liberal site was scheduled to go online as early as today. That as-yet-unnamed site was to attack some Conservative scandals.

Another site, found at www.jimhadhischance.ca,was set up before the campaign got started by Brent Fullard, who will be acclaimed today as the Liberal candidate in the Oshawa- Whitby riding, where Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is the incumbent. These Web site launches are not only the newest iterations in campaigns that, so far, have been characterized by a lot of name-calling between Tories and Liberals, but also a good example of how all parties are using the latest online services and technologies to reach past traditional methods of communications to find new pools of voters.

"This is an area we've spent a lot of time thinking about since the last campaign," said a Conservative official who previewed the new Web site for Canwest News Service on the condition he not be identified.

The challenge for political communicators is that a key demographic, young people, do not watch TV as much as they once did and are spending more time online. As a result, marketers are using new digital techniques to reach that online audience. Some of those techniques, such as a plain-vanilla Web site, have been around for a decade or more. But newer forms of reaching out to a digital audience are now also being harnessed by the campaigns.

These newer forms include services such as Facebook, Twitter and Flickr, a group of Internet-based applications often known as social-networking tools because they allow users to form ad hoc groups or small networks of friends based on a common interest.

"The thing that is amazing about all this stuff is that it enables your folks to help share our campaign effort and just what's going on with the campaign or around the campaign with their friends and neighbours," said Nammi Poorooshasb, who is co-ordinating the NDP's digital campaign.

The NDP online campaign is keyed off of www.ndp.cabut contains links to NDP content at Facebook and Twitter. The Conservative official said the type of person they aimed notaleader.caat tends to be a younger voter, between 18 and 30, who has not yet developed a particular loyalty to one political brand or another. "They are anti-establishment, libertarian, Web-and tech-savvy and politically incorrect," said the Conservative advisor. "We set out to build a Web site that appeals to them."

WE NEED ANSWERS....at Harper's political leisure

Good of Steve to hermetically seal this issue and punt it to March 2009


Two more listeriosis deaths confirmed, but no link yet to national outbreak

N.B. and Ottawa confirm two deaths Monday
Canwest News Service
Published: Monday, September 08, 2008

FREDERICTON - Two more deaths caused by listeriosis have been confirmed, but officials caution there's currently no link to the outbreak that has claimed 13 lives to date across the country.

One death was reported in New Brunswick and another in Ottawa.

Really, what does Harper know about fair?

....and now he’s a fortune teller too! Pathetic person that he is.

“Ms. May is basically presenting the same positions as Mr. Dion. She supports Mr. Dion as Prime Minister and I'm certain that Ms. May will explicitly provide her support to the Liberal party before the end of this campaign, and I don't think that's fair to the other parties,” said Mr. Harper.

Liberal leader coming to Pickering

Dion makes first GTA visit

Mon Sep 08, 2008
Northumberland News

DURHAM -- Liberal leader Stephane Dion is coming to Pickering.

He’ll be joined by area Liberal hopefuls during a rally at Ajax-Pickering candidate Mark Holland’s campaign office.

Mr. Dion will be at the office tomorrow, Tuesday, Sept. 9, at 5 p.m.

In addition to Mr. Holland, other Liberal candidates who will be there are Dan McTeague (Pickering-Scarborough East), Brent Fullard (Whitby-Oshawa), Sean Godfrey (Oshawa) and Bryan Ransom (Durham).

Following the rally with Mr. Dion, Mr. Holland will hold a party for campaign workers and supporters.

It’s Mr. Dion’s first visit to the GTA in this election.

Mr. Holland’s campaign office is at 1755 Pickering Pkwy., Unit 22a, next to the Amish Furniture outlet in the Home and Design Centre.

Will Jack Layton be foolish enough to run a candidate in Whitby-Oshawa, only to become total collateral damage in the trust wars?

Actually there’s no chance for smiling Jack to become “collateral” damage in the trust wars, he fired the first shot for heaven’s sake. Jack’s even more guilty that Jim on the trust file fiasco of the NDP’s making.

If the NDP want to have any chance of winning this riding, they need to parachute in a star candidate like Judy Wasylycia-Leis, since she is possessed with special powers to divine the existence of tax leakage from 18 pages of blacked out documents. That takes a special kind of skill, not often found among lesser mortals like me and Doug Anderson of the Green Party.

Fullard makes Whitby-Oshawa a three-man race
Durham Region News?
Nomination meeting to be held Tuesday

September 07, 2008 - 02:33

The Whitby-Oshawa riding election race just became a little more crowded.

Brent Fullard will be the Liberal candidate, subject to confirmation at a candidates meeting scheduled for Tuesday.

He joins Progressive Conservative candidate Jim Flaherty, the incumbent and Canada's finance minister, and Green Party candidate Doug Anderson.

Mr. Fullard is the volunteer CEO of the Canadian Association of Income Trust Investors/Taxpayers, a group he founded to advocate for accountability and transparency from the Harper government.

A 1979 graduate of Queen's University, he has spent over 20 years in Canadian capital markets, recently as Executive Managing Director and head of Equity Capital Markets for BMO Nesbitt Burns and presently as the head of Catalyst Asset Management.

"I look forward to campaigning in Whitby-Oshawa against the practices and policies of the Stephen Harper government and outline why I believe Ontario is a great place to live, work and invest, and how we can make it even better," Mr. Fullard said today.

Mr. Fullard has been married to Christina for 20 years, and together they have three teenaged children.

Since you asked.....for those wishing to donate

The maximum donation per year in total for candidates in $1,100. The same maximum applies to donations to the Party itself......meaning a person is capped at $2200 per year.

These donations are eligible for a 2008 tax deduction in your April 2009 tax filing.

For those wishing to donate to my candidacy, you can do so on-line. Thank you very much in advance, and wish me luck!

Donate to Brent's campaign

Announcement Re: Liberal Candidate for Whitby-Oshawa

WHITBY-OSHAWA, Sept. 7 /CNW/ - The Whitby-Oshawa Federal Liberal Riding Association today announces that Brent Fullard will be the candidate for the
riding of Whitby-Oshawa, subject to confirmation at a candidates meeting
scheduled for Tuesday September, 9, 2008.

Known for his tireless enthusiasm and dedication, Brent Fullard has
devoted considerable time on a strictly volunteer basis as the CEO of Canadian
Association of Income Trust Investors / Taxpayers, a group he founded to
advocate for accountability and transparency from the Harper government and to
reveal the government's lies about so-called tax leakage.

In 1979, immediately upon graduation from Queen's University, Brent began
work at the General Motors Car Assembly Plant in Oshawa.

Thereafter, he spent over 20 years in Canadian capital markets, recently
as Executive Managing Director and Head of Equity Capital Markets for BMO
Nesbitt Burns and presently as the Head of Catalyst Asset Management, who were
active in their opposition to the junk bond leveraged buyout of BCE before the
CRTC and the Supreme Court of Canada.

Brent's experience also covers the Canadian oil and gas industry in the time he worked at Dome Petroleum in the early 80's.

Brent Fullard stated today: "I look forward to campaigning in
Whitby-Oshawa against the practices and policies of the Stephen Harper
government and outline why I believe Ontario is a great place to live, work
and invest, and how we can make it even better."

Brent has been married to Christina for 20 years, and together they have
three teenaged children.

For further information: Brent@JimHadHisChance.ca or (647) 505-2224,

God save us from "common sense".

I am told that “just heard Harper say on CBC that we need some common sense in this country”

Common sense? More like Common Sense Revolution 2........this is the same spiel that Mike Harris screwed Ontario with.....Harper’s new Mike Harris PMO gang is doing a repeat.....since they lack both creativity and any grounding in reality

God help the country and save innocent citizens from a national version of Walkerton like, urban downloading, Toronto merging, deficit hiding, 407 toll road, Bruce Nuclear selloff, utter nonsense pawned off as common sense.

More a case of comical sense. Except none of this is remotely funny......to anyone who lived in Ontario during the intellectually repressive Mike Harris dark ages.

Governor General aborts 4 late term by-elections, accedes to Harper's election whim

Government without due process, is not government for the people, but rather government circumventing the people.

The idea of the Governor General agreeing to terminate four by-elections, three of which were to be voted on tomorrow, for the sole purpose of masking the potentially negative political fallout to the Prime Minister, is the greatest abuse of democracy and due process that I have witnessed in this country.

Michaelle Jean has confirmed the vacuous nature of her role as keeper of the Royal Rubber Stamp. One would have thought her background would have better equipped her for this important moral decision. She did not rise to the occasion or to the non-partisanship of her appointed office as the Queen's representative. The Queen is dead. Long live King Harper. The Harper monarchy reigns supreme. Lesser people stand aside. Process means nothing, when we have an electorate to delude and scandals to hide.

Stephen Harper’s record in office, is one of deception, incompetence and corruption:

I think Canadians deserve better than this:

Harper’s record of deception:

Stephen Harper is deceitful by his very nature. This probably explains how he rose to power from the netherworld of the Conservative/Reform/Alliance parties.

Harper’s deceit in office, is evidenced in technicolor by his litany of broken promises...income trusts, Atlantic accord, fixed election dates, product safety, etc. etc. So called “leaders” that lie with such regularity, deserve no roll in governing this country of Ours.

Stephen Harper’s greatest act of deceit was when he broke his solemn income trust promise, after he pandered that he would “never raid seniors’ nest eggs”. He broke this promise by coldly concocting the lie that income trusts cause tax leakage. Not only is tax leakage a lie, it was a completely manufactured argument created by the bureaucracy (Mark Carney et al), for the sole purpose of providing false justification for Harper’s act of deceit. This is either gross incompetence on Harper’s part or the act of callous deceit.

Either way, the cover-up of either incompetence or deceit is obvious to the naked eye, as Harper’s “proof” of tax leakage took the form of 18 pages of blacked out documents issued under the Access to Information Act. Like the thief returning to the scene of his crime, he then demanded these documents be returned immediately. This is also how Harper deivered on his solemn promise of Accountability and Transparence. Two more acts of deceit to add to the list.

Meanwhile credible studies by the likes of HLB Decision Economics, BMO Capital Markets, PricewaterhouseCoopers, reveal that tax leakage lie for what it is, since their is no tax leakage from income trusts, when analyzed properly. Even disgraced Jack Mintz has admitted to the falsehood in the analysis done by the Harper government, when he revealed to me in writing on November 23, 2006 that: “ There is a serious flaw in some analyses, especially on the taxation of pension and RRSP accounts. Finance was not right to treat the impact as zero.”

As for the other acts of deception, I would refer you to Danny Williams on the Atlantic Accord or Rex Murphy on the Fixed Election, empty promises. As for product safety, Harper was spending money on ads promoting the notion of product safety, while saving noney by cutting back on meat plant inspectors. Deceivers always prefer perception to reality. Governance under Harper is the equivalent of living in the Land of Oz. Just ask Canada’s former Nuclear Safety head, Linda Keen.

Harper’s record of incompetence:

Surely any definition of incompetence would include acts in office that involved achieving a result that is diametrically opposed to the intended outcome. Income trusts, like scoring a goal against you own team, is a perfect example of Harper’s policy incompetence.

It is a known fact that income trusts provide Ottawa with more tax revenue than those same businesses would as corporations. Having argued the opposite for his income trust tax, Harper’s actions have caused the very tax leakage outcome that he professed he sought to avoid. Achieving an outcome that is 180 degrees away from the intended target, is as incompetent a result as is imaginable. Harper’s trust tax, has induced $95 billion in takeovers, including BCE. BCE is the poster child for the incompetence of the Harper government;s fiscal management of this country. A $52 billion blunder with one of Canada’s iconic company’s. Harper’s policy has lead to the loss by Ottawa of $800 million in tax revenue from BCE, has turned BCE into a junk bond basket case at a point in the economic cycle were debt is an anathema, causing BCE to have insufficient capital to become competitive again, leading to increased service cost (ie text messaging fees and more of the like to come) and massive job losses of 2,500 skilled knowledge sector workers (soon to grow to 4,000 if the Globe and Mail is to be believed).

Other acts of economic incompetence by the Harper government was his politically motivated and hastily agreed to 50 cents on the dollar softwood lumber capitulation, which was on the verge of a successful court ruling in Canada’s favour, the reckless and non-stimulative successive cuts to the GST, and the wholesale exercise of vote buying in Quebec with increased transfer payments as part of one of the greatest balloonings in budgetary expenditures in the history of this country.

Harper’s record of corruption:

Harper’s record of corruption is one of the main reasons that Harper is reneging on his fixed election date promise and is (incredulously) asking the Governor General to abort 4 late stage by-elections. The other reason is the nose diving economy. Harper wants to sweep all of this under the carpet, in the hopes that it will all go away. Harper’s leading examples of corruption in office are:

(a) Cadman bribery scandal
(b) Taxpayer rip off/ election tampering scandal known as the In and Out Scandal
(c) Cover up of his cutbacks in food inspections which led to the 13 confirmed cases of lysteria deaths, which he hopes to cover up by deferring the matter to a post election public inquiry
(d) Acting at the behest of narrow commercial interests to perpetrate his income trust tax leakage fraud, the consequences of which is costing Canadian taxpayers the loss of $2 billion in annual tax revenue and which incentivizes the foreign takeover of Canadian business like BCE by foreign private equity and Prime West Energy by Abu Dhabi Energy , to name two of thre45 trust tax related takeovers
(e) The curious alignment of Brian Mulroney’s close ties to Archer Daniels Midland and Harper’s fixation on eliminating the Wheat Board, which ADM would profit from immensely

Canadians can not afford Stephen Harper. He is a proven risk. A sub-prime Prime Minister, in every conceivable respect

Lewenza, new CAW leader, vows to work strategically against Harper's re-election

Harper trying to buy union votes: Hargrove
Nicolas Van Praet , Canwest News Service
Published: Saturday, September 06, 2008

TORONTO - Canada's most prominent union leader raised his middle finger in disgust over Stephen Harper's Conservative government Saturday, accusing the prime minister of trying to buy the votes of auto workers in an election campaign that will start Sunday.

In his last speech before stepping down as president of the Canadian Auto Workers, the country's largest private sector union, Buzz Hargrove said the prime minister has ignored pleas to help the auto industry financially for three years only to find money just days before an election call.

"This is a government that we've been meeting for three years and that has said time after time not only to us personally but in public that 'we will not support any industry, we're not going to put any money into an auto plant, we're not going to pick winner and losers'," Mr. Hargrove told hundreds of CAW delegates gathered at a special convention in downtown Toronto. "Yet four or five days before an election call, they find over $300-million. Not to help the industry - they don't give a damn about the industry. Not to help the workers and families and communities.

"They don't give a damn about them. They're doing it trying to convince people that they're good people and they want to buy the votes of the auto workers. Well we should send them a message today that this is what we think of their effort," he said while raising his middle finger to rousing applause from his members.

The defiant political statement was unusual for Hargrove, who has generally remained polite in his otherwise scathing public criticism of the federal Tories.

Harper announced last week that his government would commit up to $80-million to help Ford Motor Co. develop a new line of engines at a plant in Windsor, Ontario.

The government also disclosed Saturday that it has struck a special deal with General Motors Corp. that will see the automaker spend $290-million to expand production at GM transmission facility in St. Catharines, build a new hybrid vehicle at its Oshawa, Ont. car plant, and boost research work on electric vehicles at its Oshawa engineering centre.

To help the company finance the investment, both the Ontario and federal governments will suspend loan repayments owed to them by GM worth an estimated $25-million to each government. The repayments were triggered when GM announced it would close its Oshawa pickup truck plant earlier this year.

Hargrove, who campaigned with former Liberal leader Paul Martin in the 2006 federal election, urged union members to vote "selectively" to defeat the Tories this time. Several Ontario ridings, such as Oshawa, are auto manufacturing areas that could emerge as key battle grounds as the Conservatives hunt for a majority government.

Hargrove has been CAW leader, and arguably the most recognizable public face of organized labour in the country, since 1992. He leaves a union under pressure to replace the dues of thousands of auto workers who have lost their jobs, largely in the manufacturing belt of Ontario and Quebec. Since 2005, the CAW has seen its membership decrease by 10,000 people. It now represent 255,000 workers.

As expected, delegates at the CAW convention elected Windsor, Ont. labour leader Ken Lewenza, head of a big CAW local representing workers at Chrysler LLC's minivan plant, to become the new CAW president.

Michael Lynk, associate dean of the University of Western Ontario's faculty of law, said Mr. Lewenza may be the last in a line of autoworkers who dominate the CAW. The union has expanded into other sectors such as health care and services, but the union leadership does not reflect that, he said. "They still largely operate out of an older instinct that comes out of manufacturing."

In his acceptance speech, Mr. Lewenza characterized Mr. Harper as an ultra-conservative bent on destroying the rights of organized labour.

"We've got to stop him in his tracks," he said, vowing to "strategically work" in ridings where the union believes it can influence the vote.

Financial Post




© Canwest News Service 2008

Well of course: " Governor-General should say no"

Harper, the crude and opportunistic manipulator that he is, thinks that by meeting with the GG at the very last possible moment, namely the day before the by-elections are being voted on, that he can force her hand.

For that reason alone she should tell him to get stuffed.

Simple solution: Deny the general election. Postpone the by-election vote for a week, and before Parliament resumes. Democracy will be respected. Haiti won’t be replicated

Governor-General should say no to PM, experts say
Election Call; Jean would be seen as backing violation of law

Mike Blanchfield, Canwest News Service Published: Saturday, September 06, 2008
National Post


Tomorrow Prime Minister Stephen Harper is to ask Governor-General Michaelle Jean to dissolve Parliament.Pat McGrath, Canwest File PhotoTomorrow Prime Minister Stephen Harper is to ask Governor-General Michaelle Jean to dissolve Parliament.

OTTAWA - Governor-General Michaelle Jean should consider rejecting Stephen Harper's request to dissolve Parliament and call a federal election because he is violating his own fixed-election date law, a constitutional expert and a public policy watchdog say.

"If she goes along with him, she, in a sense, is supporting his violation of the law," said Michael Behiels, a constitutional political historian at the University of Ottawa. "You're putting the Governor-General into a situation that you should never put the Governor-General in."

Duff Conacher, head of the citizen advocacy group Democracy

Watch, said Mr. Harper "has absolutely no evidence" to present to Ms. Jean that the Commons lacks confidence in the current government and should be dissolved.

"She should say, 'Demonstrate that the House of Commons doesn't have confidence in the Conservative government.' The Governor-General should just turn the Prime Minister back and say, 'No, I'm sorry, open the House and show.'"

Because the Conservatives have not lost a confidence vote, Mr. Behiels and Mr. Conacher argue Mr. Harper is violating his new fixed-election law, passed in May, 2006. The law was designed to prevent what they say Mr. Harper is now doing: using his position as Prime Minister to arbitrarily call an election at the most strategically advantageous time.

Others disagree, saying the new law gives Mr. Harper enough legal leeway to visit Rideau Hall tomorrow to seek the end of Canada's 39th Parliament, one of the longest running minority governments at two years and seven months.

Bill C-16, which amended the Elections Act, set October, 2009, as the next federal election date. But it does contain a clause that gives the Governor-General the right to dissolve Parliament if the government does not retain its confidence.

Jack Granatstein, York University's professor emeritus of history, said Mr. Harper may be violating the spirit of his fixed-date law, but not the letter of it.

"The principle of a fixed election date is that the government does not use its position ... to tip the scales in its favour. It's clear Harper is trying to do that," he explains.

"On the other hand, a minority Parliament usually doesn't last anywhere near as long as ours."

With the passage of C-16, Mr. Behiels and Mr. Conacher say Mr. Harper is now on the wrong side of the law. They say the recent meetings he held with opposition leaders, which led him to conclude Parliament was dysfunctional, simply do not meet the constitutional test for calling an election.

"He tried to embarrass them, humiliate them. How would she [Ms. Jean] know they're not willing to co-operate? Why should she take his word for it?" Mr. Behiels asked.

"He's showing he's manipulative, that he thinks he's above the law."

Mr. Conacher says Mr. Harper's gamble violates the spirit of the law, along with his broader promises to make government more accountable and transparent.

Can you think of any controversial Harper moves?

Harper comes across as bold, badgered. Voters will judge his controversial moves

Posted By ALEXANDER PANETTA, THE CANADIAN PRESS

Posted -17 sec ago

It was a political Kodak moment in which the two sides of Stephen Harper were on full display -- a single snapshot of the prime minister at his best and his worst.

The question of which side of Harper prevails over the 37-day election campaign will likely impact the result as deeply as it did in the 2004 and 2006 campaigns.

In that moment two years ago he was decisive, bold and fast-moving.

He was also crabby, coarsely partisan and somewhat disingenuous as he blamed the opposition for his sudden decision to

break an election promise. As part of his pledge to clean up federal politics, the Conservative leader had said he would create a new appointments commission to help combat political patronage.

The opposition rejected his first choice to lead the commission, Calgary oilman and Conservative backer Gwyn Morgan.

So Harper strolled downstairs from his office and in the time it took him to enter the House of Commons he casually announced that there would be no commission.

We won't be able to clean up the (appointments) process in this minority Parliament," Harper said.

We'll obviously need a majority government to do that in the future."

In that, the prime minister's fans and foes will find evidence to support their differing views of the man.

His instant abandonment of a promised anti-patronage committee was one example of a leader who makes up his mind and acts quickly.


In 2006, he won plaudits and nourished a reputation for decisiveness by campaigning on a promise to implement a simple, tightly focused list of five easy-to-remember priorities.

He has since made a series of sudden, controversial moves that stunned his opponents: recognizing a Quebecois nation, taxing income trusts and calling a quick vote to prolong Canada's Afghanistan mission.

Now he's triggered an election despite his own fixed-election law that promised a campaign in late 2009.

His detractors will draw other conclusions from these events.

They will find evidence of a leader who is prone to petulant outbursts, and is far better at strategizing against real and perceived enemies than he is at making friends.

They will find a man who falsely casts himself as a decisive leader while frequently flip-flopping and breaking his word.

Even the announcements on the Quebecois nation and the Afghanistan vote seemed inspired more by a desire to embarrass the Liberal party than by conviction.

On Quebec, he had refused for months to describe the province as a nation -- but began singing a new tune the week of a convention where the Liberal party seemed destined to tear itself up over the issue.

On Afghanistan, he campaigned on a promise to let Parliament vote on all future military deployments. But just before the Afghan vote he told stunned MPs he'd simply ignore the result if they voted against the mission.

Some politicians will agree to meet with protesters, either to calm tensions, learn about an issue or just for the publicity. Not Harper. His reaction to demonstrators at a Three Amigos summit was to call them pathetic."

His hostility toward opponents knows no geographic borders. While most leaders might put domestic trash-talking aside when they're travelling abroad, Harper revels in it.

Standing near the former site of the Berlin Wall last year, he appeared to draw parallels between the collapse of communism and the end of 12 years of Liberal rule in Canada.

One Conservative who has worked closely with Harper on two election campaigns says he's not the first cutthroat partisan to occupy the prime minister's chair.

Chretien was just as bad -- and so was Mulroney," said the high-ranking Conservative source.

But what they had was the political maturity not to show it. They knew there's a time and a place to be overtly partisan. Stephen has a bad sense of timing on that."

An example of that came in the final days of the 2006 campaign. With a majority government within reach, Harper suggested he would be prevented from making drastic changes because Liberal senators, judges, and civil servants would keep him in check. That might have cost him a majority government.

I believe, Jane Taber has got it wrong

Jane Taber of the Globe, in her POLITICAL NOTEBOOK of today, has reported on the supposed ethical dilemma that Don Martin of the Calgary Herald has placed himself, although Jane reports on the “ethical dilemma” as if it is one of someone else’s creation. Not so.

Three days ago, CAITI made an offer of a $10,000 reward for a copy of Harper’s so called dirty tricks manual. The offer was made to anyone with a copy of the manual. The $10,000 offer was necessary because Don Martin of the Calgary Herald, the only known third party person with a copy of the manual, was unwilling to give me a copy of the original he was given, when I requested that of him 16 days ago. Don Martin told me to go do my own research? My own research? He did no research himself whatsoever, as he was simply given the document. Why was he given a copy? To hide it under a rock for safekeeping?......or to disclose its contents fully to the public? Don Martin did indicate to me that the “juicy parts” (his words) are contained in the 30 page slide show portion.

Meanwhile Jane Taber is portraying Don Martin as being in some ethical dilemma, insofar as the reward is concerned. I asked Don Martin for a copy on at least two occasions long before the public reward was offered. He declined, hence the reward offer to the broader public. As such, this is an ethical dilemma of Don Martin’s own creation. Why is Don Martin hiding the contents of this highly relevant document on How to Obstruct Parliament on the very eve of Harper meeting the Governor General to prematurely dissolve Parliament on the sole basis of Harper’s argument that Parliament is dysfunctional. If Parliament is dysfunctional, it is largely due to Harper’s orchestrated tactics to render Parliament dysfunctional, as could be cooroborated by the contencts of this manual. Hence the highly relevant nature of this document to Canadians and the specific nature of its contents.

Meanwhile, could Don Martin please explain the ethics behind this response I received from him a full 16 days before I made a reward offer to the world at larger (as distinct from him personally). Why the unwillingness to share this information and protect his non-sources, since Don never received this document from the Conservative Committee Chair in the first place. What are the journalistic ethics involved in this..........information management?


August 18: Actually Brent, it wasn’t a Conservative. And I did let the Hill Times write down the text, which they published last year, but I can’t release the actual paper ‘cause there are markings on it who would identify the chair who leaked it.
Cheers, don

August 18: Don; I appreciate the response. Are you saying the full text of 200 pages is available? Brent

August 18: ...The material is, I’ve counted them again, 37 pages of underlining and scribbles and exclamation points and notes all incorporated into the text of the presentation. It would take an hour to go through it and delete the marks to ready it for sharing with you.... Do your own research and subscribe to the Hill Times, search the archives and find the text they reprinted. I just don’t have the time right now. sorry. Don



Doesn’t have the time? Doesn’t Don know a good story when he sees one? Or does that explain why he’s sitting on this highly politically volatile and incriminating Conservative Party information, if indeed that’s what it is?

Meanwhile, his matter of journalistic ethics can be simply resolved by Don Martin making the source document (rather this his personal account thereof or the Hill Times account thereeof) available immediately to the broad public. Kady O’Malley of Macleans has indicated her strong desire for a copy of the source document as well. Therefore, I, Kady O’Malley and all truth seeking Canadians would be most grateful, and as a gesture of good faith, CAITI would be willing to donate the $10,000 to any charity of Don Martin’s choice, provided this is done within the next three days. Three days would surely give Don the hour he told me it would take to redact the hand written scribble, if he so desires.

I thank Don Martin in advance, as do all truth seeking Canadians.




POLITICAL NOTEBOOK
JANE TABER

jtaber@globeandmail.com

September 6, 2008


Hot: Don Martin. The political columnist for the National Post and the Calgary Herald has a copy of the so-called Conservative dirty tricks manual or "Parliamentary Obstruction Document," a 200-page tome on how to make Parliament dysfunctional.

The Canadian Association of Income Trust Investors (CAITI), which is angry about the Harper/Flaherty broken promise on income trusts, is offering $10,000 to anyone who will supply them with a copy. A sneaky Liberal recently contacted Mr. Martin with what the Grit thought was a win-win situation. He asked Mr. Martin to give him the manual and he would turn it in to CAITI and collect the reward. He would give Mr. Martin the $10,000 and use the manual against the Tories in the coming campaign. The head of CAITI, Brent Fullard, would also have his copy.

Yesterday, Mr. Fullard said the offer is good until Sept. 15. Meanwhile, Mr. Martin, an ethical journalist, could not accept the money - so tempting as he just bought a new car.

Jane Taber is the co-host of CTV's Question Period, broadcast Sunday on CTV across the country.

Public Service request

Could someone please upload the Zytaruk (Cadman bribery) tape to You Tube? I foresee considerable public demand for it.

That would be much appreciated......and most highly viewed.

No chance that Harper would sue Google is there?

So why did RBC recklessly advise BCE to borrow $44 billion, if not to take it to the brink?

Global financial system 'pushed to the brink,' RBC's Nixon warns
Last Updated: Friday, September 5, 2008

The worldwide financial system has been "pushed to the brink" in its most severe downturn since the Great Depression, although the actions of American policy-makers have averted disaster, the head of Canada's largest bank said Friday.

"Not since the [Second World War] has the financial system itself been in such a state of dysfunction," Royal Bank chief executive Gordon Nixon told a roundtable of prominent business leaders in Calgary.
Royal Bank CEO Gordon Nixon, shown above in 2007, said Friday in Calgary that the global financial system is in 'a state of dysfunction.'

However, Nixon said "decisive actions" such as the bailout of investment bank Bear Stearns, which was bought by JPMorgan in a deal orchestrated by the U.S. central bank, prevented a potentially disastrous ripple effect from taking place.

Remind me again....who's calling this election?

MacKay hopes election won't fuel Taliban

Canadian Press

September 5, 2008 at 1:40 PM EDT

HALIFAX — Defence Minister Peter MacKay says he hopes the Taliban doesn't use a federal election campaign to step up attacks on Canadian Forces in southern Afghanistan.

During a stop at a military trade show in Halifax on Friday, Mr. MacKay was asked whether he thought the Taliban would target Canada's military in an attempt to influence the election outcome.

“I sure hope not,” he said. “All I can tell you is the challenge is there, it's real. We've seen the tactics of the Taliban. ... Their tactics know no bounds, know no rules of engagement.”

He said the government is aware the Taliban is not just “living in caves and attacking soldiers” and is informed about what is happening in Canada and other parts of the world through the Internet, which also helps them wage their own propaganda war.

“We're mindful of that, we're not deterred by the intimidation and we're going to continue our important work there to the benefit of the Afghan people,” he said.

Mr. MacKay said the government remains committed to the military mission, despite a recent poll that suggested 61 per cent of Canadians believe the cost in lives and money is too high.

The minister said he doesn't share the same view and believes it's important to be part of a global effort to combat terrorism to ensure safety at home and a better life for the Afghan people.

“It's been a priority for us ... Canadians are a reliable ally. When the world comes to our door, we respond.”

However, he said it was clear from recent attacks that the flood of weapons and insurgents into Afghanistan is making for “an extremely challenging mission.”

Three more Canadian soldiers were killed in an ambush on Wednesday, bringing the mission's death toll to 96 since 2002.

The Conservative government has committed Canada's troops to duty in Kandahar until 2011.

Stephen Harper is like the contractor from hell

Most people think hiring a contractor to perform home improvements is the easy hands-off way to improve their lives and living conditions.

That’s the way it’s supposed to work. In theory at least.

Often hiring a contractor is a nightmarish experience for many people.

Think of Stephen Harper as just such an experience. Stephen Harper, the Roofing Contractor from Hell got himself all worked into a tizzy when BCE and Telus announced they were going to convert to trusts, not realizing that Ottawa would collect more taxes than before.

Harper, the rube that he is, totally bought the line from ex Goldman Sachs investment banker Mark Carney that income trusts cause tax leakage.

Panicked by that notion, Harper brought in his wrecking crew in the form of Jim Flaherty, who said he could fix that (non-existent) leak by installing a new set of shingles.

Turns out Jim knew nothing about the task at hand. He's an insurance litigator for chrikey's sake. He installed the shingles upside down and top to bottom. Jim only succeeded in creating a massive tax leakage leak where none existed beforehand. His trust tax has caused over $90 billion in trust tax related takeovers, that in turn have resulted in the loss of over $2 billion in ANNUAL tax revenue to Ottawa, each and every year.

Drip. Drip. Drip. The contractor from hell works here.

Apparently this Harper guy is looking to renew his contract, even before its expiry date. That alone must tell you something something’s decidedly fishy.

Harper is a contractor you wouldn't even recommend to your worst enemy.

Has Carol Goar found religion?

Has Carol Goar of the Toronto Star finally awakened to her responsibilities as a journalist, with her piece today entitled “Dig beneath the clever packaging”.

Has she actually found her investigative shovel?

Gone, perhaps, are the days when she had to admit on the question of this government’s canard called tax leakage: “I didn't explore the possibility that [Flaherty] was lying. Perhaps I should have.”

Dig beneath the clever packaging

Sep 05, 2008
Carol Goar
Toronto Star

A strong leader, a straight-up guy, the steady hand we need.

Conservative strategists have packaged Prime Minister Stephen Harper well for an election fought under gathering economic clouds.

Canadians want a safe choice, a responsible choice, a candidate equipped to steer the nation through a period of adversity.

But the reassuring message in the Tory ad blitz doesn't match the government's record:

Ottawa had a $13.2 billion surplus when Harper came to power. Two-and-a-half years later, it is hovering on the brink of a deficit.

The slowing global economy is partly to blame. But deliberate government action also drained billions of dollars out of the federal treasury. Harper cut the GST, reduced corporate income taxes and doled out a plethora of tax breaks. At the same time, his government went on a military spending spree and increased provincial transfer payments sharply.

As a result, Ottawa has almost no fiscal cushion at a time of looming hardship.

Disregarding the advice of almost every economist in the land, Harper chopped the goods and services tax by two percentage points.

Not only was this an extraordinarily expensive tax cut, it did nothing to reward effort, encourage saving or stimulate investment. Even those who tout low taxes as the key to increased productivity don't advocate cutting the GST.

The Prime Minister can take credit for keeping his 2006 election promise to bring down Ottawa's consumption tax to 5 per cent. But $12 billion in foregone revenue is a high price to pay for a handful of extra change at the cash register.

Harper boasted that Canada was an "energy superpower" while the country's industrial heartland was bleeding from the twin blows of a high dollar and a sharp increase in fuel prices.

As plants closed and well-paying jobs disappeared, the Tories insisted it wasn't the role of government to rescue dying industries or interfere with market forces.

Voters looking to the Prime Minister to provide a buffer against the fierce economic headwinds battering most of Canada might want to ask what he has done for the 167,500 manufacturing workers who have lost their jobs since he took power.

Cities have no place in Harper's economic vision. He considers them creatures of the provinces.

The Tories have repeatedly brushed off entreaties from the nation's municipal leaders to treat them as partners in creating magnets for new talent, incubators for the industries of the future and vibrant, attractive places to invest. He has told them to go to the provinces for the resources they need to shore up their aging infrastructure, curb pollution, provide affordable housing and tackle the social problems that breed crime and hold back young people.

This outdated view of Confederation offers little hope to the 80 per cent of Canadians who live in urban centres.

It is true that Harper is decisive. But his decisiveness borders on dogmatism. It is true that he projects self-assurance. But it takes more than that to navigate through economic shoals.

None of this means voters seeking shelter should rush into the arms of Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion.

He is not the weak, dithering figure the Tories portray him to be – his Green Shift plan is as bold an election blueprint as Canadians have seen in decades – but he is an unknown commodity, even to his political peers.

He takes a disconcertingly long time to move from deliberation to action, not an attribute that inspires confidence in times of economic turbulence. His laboured English and his tendency to lecture listeners can be off-putting. And he is asking Canadians to embark on a radical restructuring of the economy at a time when many are worried about their paycheques and fuel bills.

So what is an anxious voter to do?

First, tune out the ads. They are designed to sell and smear, not provide accurate information.

Next, think independently. Herds are for lemmings.

Finally, accept that there may not be a good choice. Make a reasonable one.

Just what is Harper’s economic record......the number one upcoming campaign issue?

As a supposed trained economist, albeit one who never practiced his profession outside the halls of the University of Calgary, Stephen Harper has left behind a very sad legacy of economic mismanagement of Canada, by any objective measure of assessment.

This probably has a lot to do with the fact that Stephen Harper thought he could turn economic theory on its head. No where was this more the case than with his two point cut to the GST. Any credible economist ( I guess that excludes Stephen Harper) would have told you that the best way to stimulate the economy, provide the proper incentives and improve overall productivity is to lessen taxes on employment income rather than lessen consumption taxes.

Meanwhile, one even has to seriously question the political wisdom of reducing the GST, since there wasn’t exactly a hue and cry for that measure to occur. Perhaps like George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, Stephen Harper was still fighting the long ago failed battles of his predecessors. Makes you wonder a bit about his thought processes on both an economic and psychological basis.

Meanwhile the only other broad sweeping economic policy that Stephen Harper has brought into effect is the Tax Fairness Plan. On the basis of its name alone this policy was destined for greatness. Unfortunately the policy does not live up to its name and every aspect of this policy of gross tax inequity has been an unmitigated failure, leading to:

The loss of confidence in the Canadian capital markets
The loss of some $35 billion in Canadians’ retirement savings
The loss of essential choice for both investors and business
Material diminution to the lifestyles of Canadian seniors and increased exposure to financial risks, leading to increased reliance on Canada’s social services
Codification of a two tiered pension system in Canada that imposed taxes on those 75% of Canadians without pensions, but exempts those 25% with pensions
Loss of a unique Made in Canada form of low cost capital
Gutting out of Canada’s IPO marketplace
Gutting out of Alberta’s junior resource company marketplace and drill rig activity
Entrenchment of the status quo high cost of capital business model of common share corporations
Massive loss of tax revenue to Ottawa, presently amounting to $2 billion per year, soon expected to rise to $7.5 billion
Major influx of foreign private equity capital into Canada that exploits out tax laws and levers up the privat sector’s balance sheet leading too reduced competitiveness
Massive job losses, eg BCE’s 2500 layoffs, expected to rise to 4,000 in the near term

Bottom line. Now more than ever, as the global economy weakens and the challenges faced by Ottawa become even greater, we need experienced and knowledgeable people in office who have the capacity to do the right thing..... and the smart thing.

This precludes Stephen Harper from consideration in his own self imposed Vanity 2008 Election, cum full panic mode

Upon becoming Canada’s Prime Minister in 2006, Stephen Harper had nothing in his resume to indicate that he was up to such an assignment. Nor did anyone in his cabinet or caucus. Canada’s economic record of the last two and half years with Harper at the helm, by any objective measure, reveals that he is clearly most unsuited to the economic challenges task facing Canada in the days and years ahead. Don’t say you weren’t warned or that the evidence for such a conclusion wasn’t abundantly obvious in September of 2008. As for Harper, maybe he could go back and finish that PhD of his? Everyone would be richer for the experience.

Is Flaherty himself guilty of "short-term, ad-hoc, subsidy thinking"?

Is Flaherty himself guilty of "short-term, ad-hoc, subsidy thinking"?

In January 2008, at the time of its greatest need, Flaherty flatly refused to invest a dime in the Ford Essex Engine plant saying any such investment would be "short-term, ad-hoc, subsidy thinking" and that “"politicians aren't very good at picking business winners and losers",

These two comments apply perfectly to Flaherty’s signature legislation known as the Tax Fairness Plan, which has been nothing but an exercise in a tax failure plan.

The Tax Fairness Plan was designed with the sole purpose of eliminating choice in the marketplace for both issuers and investors, in the fantasy belief that one size fits all and that the government alone knows best how to pick “winners from losers”.

Flaherty also coldly and cynically realized that he didn’t have a hope in hell of bringing this Manulife/Power Financial/BCE bespoke tax policy over the finish line if he did anything to upset the pension funds like Teachers’, CPP et al. As such, Flaherty resorted to a policy of gross discrimination by taxing RRSPs that hold public income trusts at 31.5%, but not taxing pension funds that hold private trusts in a like manner. Instead they are taxed at ZERO.

This very carve out is why OMERs is toady bidding for Teranet a public income trust and if successful will take it private. It’s their way of avoiding the tax and exploiting those existing holder who are faced with the imminent threat of paying this tax. This is called highway robbery, more specifically tax arbitrage highway robbery. It is also called “"short-term, ad-hoc, subsidy thinking". The subsidy comes from the fact that all these trusts that are being acquired under this pension fund loophole and by foreign private equity via leveraged buyouts on which virtually no tax is paid in Canada, which is presently costing Ottawa $2 billion a year in lost tax revenue relative to pre-Flaherty. Once the entire sector goes this inevitable way, the annual subsidy will increase to $7.5 billion a year, post Flaherty

As for picking winners from losers, hopefully the voters of Whitby-Oshawa will be able to see through to the incompetent person that they sent to Ottawa to represent them, in the form of Jim Flaherty, Minister on the Run.



Ford decision wasn't a Tory change of heart
Madelaine Drohan
RTGAM


Ottawa - The Harper government made it clear from the get-go that it was not interested in picking business winners and losers and would not be doling out the type of aid that companies had grown used to under the Liberals. Does its decision this week to lend Ford Motor Co. $80-million to resurrect a mothballed engine plant represent a change of heart?



Prime Minister Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty struggled mightily to portray support for the ailing car maker as something new and innovative that fit within their previous plans and not just a politically motivated gesture aimed at bolstering support for two Conservative MPs with a tenuous hold on their ridings.



Mr. Flaherty had the toughest job because only last January he was calling similar aid by the government of Ontario "short-term, ad-hoc, subsidy thinking". He repeated comments made as far back as his days as a provincial minister that "politicians aren't very good at picking business winners and losers". His defence that the money would come from something called the Automotive Innovation Fund, which sounds all flashy and modern, was not entirely convincing.

Question for Flaherty: Will OMERs pay the 31.5% tax on Teranet? If not, why not?

OMERS Borealis Infrastructure unit offers $2 billion in cash for Teranet

September 4, 2008

TORONTO — A $2-billion takeover offer from a unit of one of Ontario's largest public-sector pensions caused units of Teranet Income Fund (TSX:TF.UN) to soar Thursday to their highest level since the land registry operator has been on the stock market.

Teranet units closed Thursday at $11.24, up $1.88 or 20 per cent and above the offer of $11 per unit announced earlier in the day by Borealis Infrastructure Management, part of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System.

The previous 52-week high was $10.69. Earlier in Thursday's session, the units traded as high as $11.25 - a record since the units began trading in June 2006.

The units were at $8.98 before media reports of takeover speculation began to circulate in late August.

BCE's junk bond binging versus H&R's stapled diet

H&R's stapled diet

Barry Critchley, Financial Post Published: Friday, September 05, 2008

Unitholders of H&R Real Estate Investment Trust gather in two weeks to vote on an internal reorganization that will create another company that has a stapled unit security. Indeed, if BCE Inc.'s directors had responded to a proposal from Catalyst Asset Management last year -- and agreed -- BCE's shareholders would have been called to a similar meeting.

H&R's meeting comes four months after it said it was contemplating a possible internal reorganization "for the purpose of creating a structure that would be more efficient for the REIT from both an operational and tax perspective." The plan was conditional on a number of matters, including the support of the trustees and the unitholders and on receiving an "advance income tax ruling from the Canada Revenue Agency confirming certain Canadian federal income tax consequences." That has since been received, so it's now up to the unitholders to pass judgment.

The plan is complex. (The circular runs to 224 pages, complete with charts and lots of text.) "Although the Reorganization is intended to be economically neutral, the steps of the Reorganization are highly technical," said H&R, noting that the reorganization was motivated by the REIT's capital requirements, expectations of its unitholders, U. S. tax legislation, Canadian tax implications and the ongoing costs with the stapled unit structure.

Here's the Coles Notes version: - A unitholder will receive a unit of a sister trust, H&RFinance Trust, whose sole activity will be to hold debt issued by a wholly owned U. S. subsidiary of the REIT through which the REIT holds its U. S. interests. A unitholder's investments will be held through the old REIT unit and through the new trust, H&R Finance Trust. Each outstanding REIT unit will trade together with a unit of H&R Finance Trust as a stapled unit. "The Finance Trust Units and the REIT Units should be treated as two separate instruments traded together," notes the circular. - Unitholders will receive distributions from both the REIT and H&R Finance Trust. Indeed, H&R says "the combined distributions would exceed the distributions that would have been payable by the REIT in future years in the absence of implementing the Reorganization." - An asset transfer whereby a REIT subsidiary, which holds an interest in a Calgary office tower, will transfer its assets to the REIT.

---

TimberWest Forest Corp. is another Canadian company that has a stapled unit. Its stapled units consist of one common share, 100 preferred shares and $8.98 of subordinate notes. Taiga Forest Products is another. In 2005, it converted from a corporation to an in-come fund-like structure using stapled units. Each share was exchanged for four stapled units, with each stapled unit consisting of a common share plus a 14% subordinated note.

---

In Catalyst's proposal for BCE, a special-purpose company would offer a stapled security for each outstanding BCE share. The stapled security would consist of a share and a debt security, with the initial payout (interest and dividends) of $2.55 a year -- versus $1.46 paid on the common shares.

"A stapled security is a vastly more elegant way to do a public leverage buyout and not ruin the credit rating of the company," said Brent Fullard, Catalyst CEO. "It would have worked well in BCE's case because it represented a value-maximizing, tax-efficient way to distribute the earnings of BCE to the existing shareholders rather than the new private equity and the owners of $44-billion of debt."

bcritchley@nationalpost.com

Maclean’s Andrew Coyne calls Harper a “dodger” on CBC’s The National At Issue Panel

Citing four things:

Fixed Election Promise Dodger
Emerson Floor crossing Dodger
Atlantic Accord Promise Dodger
Income Trust Promise Dodger

Harper’s math: Three broken promises = three former cabinet ministers

There is a certain sinking ship feeling to HMS Harper these days, what with three Cabinet Ministers not seeking re-election. Curious that each of these three Cabinet Minsters is closely tied to one or other of Stephen Harper’s more epic betrayals/broken promise, as follows:


David Emerson: Minister of Foreign Affairs: The poster child for Harper’s hypocrisy against floor crossers (remember Harper’s pious outrage over Belinda Stronach?)

Loyola Hearn: Fisheries Minister: The poster child for Harper’s epic betrayal known as the Atlantic Accord promise gone missing.

Monte Solberg: Human Resources Minister: The poster child and point man in the last election, as Harper’s Finance Critic, for the epic betrayal of a lifetime, the $35 billion income trust fraud premised on Mark Carney’s manufactured tax leakage epic nonsense.

There you have it. The rats are always the first to detect a sinking ship.

Hamilton Spectator Editorial Cartoon September 4, 2008

Sorry Steve, you can’t lie to steel town workers and not expect to end up in the electoral slag heap.

Monte Solberg, main promulgator of Harper's income trust lie in last election, isn't running for re-election

3 Canada Cabinet Ministers Won't Seek Re-Election

OTTAWA (Dow Jones)--Three Canadian Cabinet ministers won't contest in the
upcoming federal election, including Foreign Minister David Emerson, the
Conservative Party said in a statement Thursday.


Emerson, who was previously International Trade Minister, won the January 2006
election as a Liberal candidate in the Vancouver-Kingsway electoral district in
British Columbia but switched to the Conservatives.


Human Resources Minister Monte Solberg and Fisheries and Oceans Minister
Loyola Hearn also won't seek re-election. They represent electoral districts in
Alberta and Newfoundland and Labrador, respectively.


The statement said all three will have "prominent roles" in the upcoming
election campaign.


Prime Minister Stephen Harper will on Sunday call an election for Oct. 14,
according to media reports.


-Nirmala Menon, Dow Jones Newswires; 613-237-0668; nirmala.menon@dowjones.com

Harper created a "tax arbitrage" to favor pension funds, at the expense of RRSPs

Definition of "tax arbitrage" from the Financial Dictionary.com:

“Trading that takes advantage of a difference in tax rates or tax systems as the basis for profit.”

To wit, the Tax Arbitrage Plan explicitly created by Harper in his so called Tax Fairness Plan, in which RRSPs pay Harper’s 31.5% income trust tax, and pension funds do not, as per these tax arbitrage takeovers over the recent months and days:

Teachers’ buying BCE
OMERs buying Teranet
OMERs buying Golf Town
Caisse buying Legacy Hotel REIT
Public Sector Pension Plan buying Thunder Energy Trust
Public Sector Pension Plan Retirement Residences REIT
BCIC buying CHIP REIT

These takeovers amount to the 75% of Canadians without pensions, in effect, funding the pensions of the 25% of Canadians with pensions.

This amounts to a stealth transfer of wealth by arbitrary and unfair tax policy edict means.

Rather than stemming alleged tax leakage from income trusts, which never existed in the first place, the $95 billion of trust takeovers had CAUSED $2 billion in annual tax loss to Ottawa. As such, this scheme of Harper's means that all tax payers are paying for his incompetence and intellectual corruption.

Will Harper's xenophobic burka voting ban be in effect for his Vanity 2008 election?

Xenophobia is a fear or contempt of that which is foreign or unknown, especially of strangers or foreign people.[1] It comes from the Greek words ξένος (xenos), meaning "foreigner," "stranger," and φόβος (phobos), meaning "fear." The term is typically used to describe a fear or dislike of foreigners or of people significantly different from oneself.

Ontario's Sovereign Wealth Fund, OMERs, is at it again

I think it would be most insightful if someone from the news media would look up the definition of the word “arbitrage”. Doing so would be very instructive since it would explain why OMERs is buying Teranet and also why OMERs bought Golf Town Income Fund.

None of this is complicated.....just intellectually corrupt.

You see, as a public trust held by taxpayers, Teranet will be subject to an additional 31.5% tax on top of the 38% tax that investors already pay. Meanwhile as a private trust held by OMERs it will not. That’s Harper’s idea of a Tax Fairness Plan. Sovereign Wealth Funds like OMERs Teachers et al are exempt from Harper’s draconian tax, while the 75% of Canadians who do not belong to such lofty pension plans are not.

Sounds fair......provided you live in North Korea.

Knowing the Canadian business media to be infinitely lazy....here’s the definition of arbitrage:

1. Finance. the simultaneous purchase and sale of the same securities, commodities, or foreign exchange in different markets to profit from unequal prices or values, for example caused by arbitrary disparities in tax treatment afforded different classes of security holders


UPDATE 1-OMERs Borealis Infrastructure to bid C$2 bln for Teranet
Thu Sep 4, 2008 8:44am EDT

TORONTO, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Borealis Infrastructure said on Thursday it will offer more than C$2 billion ($1.9 billion) in cash for Teranet Income Fund (TF_u.TO: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) after a string of bids in recent years to acquire the company have failed.

Borealis intends to offer C$11 per Teranet unit, about a 27 percent premium over the volume-weighted average trading price of the units in the 30 days up to Aug. 27, the day before speculation surfaced about a potential deal.

Toronto-based Teranet provides access to the Electronic Land Registration System and pockets a share of a fee every time a house changes hands in the province.

Since 2007, Borealis, the investment unit of OMERS, one of Canada's largest pension plans, said it has made three proposals to Teranet to enter into negotiations to buy all of its units or assets but has not been able to advance discussions.

"We believe it is in the best interests of Teranet unitholders as well as our own stakeholders to make this attractive offer directly to unitholders now," Michael Rolland, chief executive of Borealis, said in a statement. "We also plan to redeem Teranet's existing bonds upon successful completion of the transaction."

($1=$1.06 Canadian) (Reporting by Frank Pingue; Editing by Frank McGurty)

Harper offers two different versions of testimony in Cadman bribery scandal

Harper testifies he personally authorized Cadman offer

Sep 03, 2008 07:35 PM
Tim Naumetz
THE CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA – Prime Minister Stephen Harper has testified that he personally authorized an offer made to late MP Chuck Cadman in 2005 for help defeating the Liberal government.

In sworn testimony filed Wednesday in Ontario Superior Court, Harper said it happened after he heard Cadman was willing to side with the Tories but couldn't because of financial distress and fear of losing an election.

It was Harper's first detailed account of his role in the so-called Cadman affair and, during four hours of testimony, he offered two different versions of when he first learned about Cadman's financial troubles.

Harper said he approved the overture to Cadman on May 18, 2005, the day before a crucial confidence vote, after receiving a message from his top political organizer and campaign manager, Doug Finley.

Harper testified during a cross-examination in his $3.5-million libel suit against the Liberal party that he gave permission for Finley to speak to Cadman, a former Conservative, even though he was sure Cadman was going to support the Liberals in the confidence vote.

This is Harper's only lengthy explanation of his actions in the Cadman affair – allegations that Conservative representatives offered Cadman a $1-million insurance policy to help defeat the Liberals.

Harper testified that he personally met Cadman on April 1 that year in an attempt to coax him back to the Conservative fold, after having authorized a similar approach by former Tory MP John Reynolds as early as the previous fall.

Under cross-examination by the Liberal party lawyer, Harper initially said Finley informed him about Cadman's worries over finances and life insurance the following September.

Cadman had terminal cancer at the time of the 2005 confidence vote – which the Liberals survived thanks to Cadman's support – and died later that summer. Harper sued the Liberals over suggestions posted on their web site that he was aware of a bribery attempt in the affair.

A biography of Cadman written by B.C. author Tom Zytaruk quotes Cadman's widow, Dona, saying two Conservatives approached Cadman two days before the confidence vote with a package of incentives to vote against the Liberals and rejoin the Conservatives, including the insurance policy.

But Harper testified during the examination nearly two weeks ago in Ottawa that the only offer to Cadman he authorized was the one requested by Finley the day before the May 19 confidence vote.

He said he first learned of the insurance policy, as well as Cadman's financial straits, when Dona Cadman told him of the offer during a personal visit he made to her house on Sept. 9, 2005, where, after his talk with Dona Cadman, he was interviewed by Zytaruk.

"When I talked to Doug subsequent to my conversation with Dona and Tom Zytaruk, and I started to inquire, we started to bang heads together about where this story was coming from," Harper said during four hours of cross-examination that took place in the boardroom of the Gowlings law firm in Ottawa, where his lawyer, Richard Dearden, is a partner.

"Doug told me, you know, he didn't source it, but he told me that he had heard stories about Chuck being concerned about his finances and being concerned about insurance, but he said, in fact, Chuck had never raised any such matter with him," Harper said.

"My first reaction to the story was it sounded preposterous to me. I couldn't understand how or why anyone would offer a man with cancer a life insurance policy . . . and Doug Finley certainly wouldn't have done it because Doug is not a . . . personal benefits man."

But as Liberal lawyer Chris Paliare pressed Harper about whether he had been told by anyone earlier that Cadman was worried about financial security, the prime minister offered new details.

"Maybe I should add to you where this came up firstly," he said. "This is when Doug Finley called me through my executive, Ray Novak, on the 18th, and he asked permission to approach Chuck Cadman on behalf of the party to get him to rejoin the caucus, and that the story was that Chuck wanted to vote with us in Parliament as he usually did, and that he would want to rejoin the caucus and fight with us in an election campaign, but that he couldn't because he didn't have, you know, he didn't have the financing, he would have lost the election, et cetera, et cetera."

Harper testified that his initial response was that he believed Cadman was going to vote with the Liberals, based on his earlier April 1 discussion with Cadman.

The prime minister said party members were conveying the message ``aggressively" to him that then-prime minister Paul Martin and other Liberals had approached Cadman seeking support in the Commons vote and that he "had a responsibility to make sure that Chuck was formally approached and that it was clearly understood that he could rejoin the caucus, that he could get the nomination, there was no doubt about that, and that he would be a priority for the party in terms of re-election and financial support. And on that basis, I authorized the meeting on the 19th."

Though Harper has not taken any legal action against Zytaruk, he has contended since last June that a tape of the interview Zytaruk conducted with him outside Dona Cadman's home was doctored.

Zytaruk is heard asking Harper about the life insurance policy, Harper is heard saying he did not know the details but was aware party representatives had approached Cadman with an offer of ``financial considerations" in case of a snap election.

He has since said the financial considerations included campaign expenses and support, but added more detail about Finley's offer during the cross examination.

"(Finley) said he had no offer of a policy of insurance, he was there to lay down for Chuck that he could join the caucus, that he would automatically get the nomination, and the party would take care of squaring that away in the riding, that he would become, this is the detail that Doug gave me at the time, that he would become part of what we call the target seed voter program which has a number of various benefits for candidacy that is high priority for the party in terms of financial support, in terms of services and other kinds of campaign support."

Harper said at another point in the testimony: "The argument was that Chuck wanted to vote with us and wanted to be in our caucus; the reason he would not vote with us, the reason he would not rejoin the caucus, was because he didn't want to be stranded as an independent. The whole argument was that he would not be able to fight and election campaign, that he would be financing this campaign out of his pocket, that he would be extremely vulnerable."

Under further questioning, Harper said the assistance would have included a repayable loan to Cadman's riding association – "not to the candidate himself, not him personally."

The Liberals' lawyer pressed Harper about whether the insurance policy Dona Cadman described may actually have been a top-up to Cadman's life insurance as an MP should he lose his seat in an electon. Harper said he was unaware of those kinds of details.

Paliare also probed Harper over the difference between offers of financial assistance or aid to reimburse candidate expenses and offers made "for securing a vote to bring down a government."

Harper rejected the comparison, saying his party "cannot agree under any circumstances to provide a personal benefit" to a candidate before or after an election. He said the party can only agree to transfer money – in accordance with electoral law – to its own candidate.

Paliare also questioned Harper over the prime minister's claim the Zytaruk tape had been doctored and Harper said several times during the examination that he believed Zytaruk himself altered the tape.

A Superior Court hearing is scheduled for Sept. 22, likely in the midst of a federal election campaign, where expert evidence on the authenticity and integrity of the tape will be heard.

FORD stands for Financed On Re-election Day

The cynical mind is the best predictor of Harper’s next move


A tale of two cities
Gord Henderson, Windsor Star
Published: Thursday, January 17, 2008

The outrageous stonewalling over the $30 million in federal assistance needed to reopen Ford of Canada's Essex Engine Plant speaks volumes about how out of touch with reality this government and its fat cat mandarins have become.

While Windsor sheds jobs and watches its best and brightest, not to mention its most desperate, pack up and move away, the Stephen Harper government is either taking its sweet time -- as in waiting for the next election campaign -- in deciding whether to invest in this no-brainer project or it's allowing brittle ideology to stand in the way of a common-sense decision that would give the Windsor area economy a badly needed boost.

If you believe Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty's version of events, Harper has flatly rejected direct aid for the $300-million venture. If that's the case, one can only wonder: Do Harper and his minions have a clue how bad things are here? Do they give a damn? From the perspective of Ottawa, which is swimming in white-collar, tax-subsidized prosperity, it must be hard to fathom that the best of times don't extend to industrial centres like Windsor, which always made their money through honest toil.

How good is life in the capital? The Ottawa Citizen trumpeted last Friday that "Fat City" was back, with the capital region having increased its "core public administration" workforce by 12,800 jobs -- a staggering 20 per cent -- between 1995 and 2006. "If this keeps up, we may not swagger, but we may soon jiggle," boasted the paper as it happily described how the region "has been feasting at the buffet table while the rest of Canada has been on a diet" in terms of hiring civil servants.

Little wonder the Harper government and its senior bureaucrats aren't particularly interested in a massive plant and hundreds of jobs in Windsor. They're too busy padding payrolls in a capital region that just chalked up a record low unemployment rate of 4.5 per cent.

You know our problem? We're just Canadians who need a helping hand out here in the hinterland, and that's not nearly as sexy as dishing out cheques overseas.

A week before Christmas the feds announced a $300-million contribution to an international aid package aimed at building viable institutions for a future Palestinian state. That was welcome news for the Palestinians and perhaps for eventual peace in the Middle East.

But if Canada can find $300 million to pay the salaries of Palestinian policemen and bureaucrats, why on earth is it so difficult to come up with one-tenth of that amount to put hundreds of our own citizens back to work and restore hope in a downtrodden city?

Meanwhile, Ottawa doles out $60 million annually in foreign aid to support projects in the People's Republic of China. That's right. This global superpower and economic titan, the communist China that's eating our collective lunch while growing exponentially, is still on Ottawa's charity list.

They've wiped out industry after industry here with their cheap labour advantage and have piled up such massive surpluses that they can bail out major American banks, and yet Canadian aid dollars are still being funnelled into China.

They devastated our once prosperous Windsor tool and mould industry and are taking dead aim at our automobile market with dirt-cheap vehicles. And we respond by sending them money to build facilities like a grandiose ecology centre in remote Inner Mongolia that almost no one visits. And yet there's no investment money for badly needed Windsor industries? What madness is this?

Former agriculture minister Eugene Whelan, who played a key role in securing the engine plant as a member of the Trudeau cabinet, is appalled that Harper and company can't find $30 million for a new V-8 engine.

"That's chickenfeed. Just a pittance," scoffed Whelan. In essence he's right. The $68 million committed by his government and Queen's Park to win a 1978 bidding war with Ohio would be worth well over $200 million today.

The $30 million is just seed money. It would be returned to Ottawa many times over in payroll and corporate taxes. So what the hell is the problem?

The Harper regime is either thick as a brick in not seeing the need for competitive incentives or incredibly crass in holding those jobs hostage in order to make a good-news election announcement. Too late for that. The damage is done.

What a humiliation for lackluster Essex backbencher Jeff Watson and the other doomed Tory candidates in this area.

ghenderson@thestar.canwest.com


© The Windsor Star 2008

Forget Ford for a fleeting moment, here's Harper's real automotive manufacturing strategy

Federal Bus Purchase a Travesty, Desnoyers Says

July 27, 2007

Federal government plans to purchase up to 30 buses from a European company rather than a Canadian manufacturer is a travesty that will mean more hardship for Canadian workers, families and their communities, CAW Quebec Director Luc Desnoyers says.

Public Works Minister Michael Fortier is defending the federal government’s decision to select a German bus maker over two Canadian firms, including Quebec’s Prevost Car Inc. Fortier claims the federal government will save money by purchasing buses from Germany. CAW Local 911 represents workers at Prevost.

Desnoyers said Quebec manufacturing has been hard hit by the rise in the value of the Canadian dollar compared to the U.S., unfair trade agreements and the lack of federal government action to protect manufacturing jobs.

“This latest decision is a travesty for Quebec workers. The awarding of this bus contract to Prevost would have meant up to 60 laid off workers were called back as well as greater security for hundreds of other workers,” Desnoyers said. “The government’s decision doesn’t take into account the loss in tax revenues, lost wages within the community or the social impact on workers and their families.”

Since the beginning of 2007, Quebec has lost 43,500 manufacturing jobs, according to Statistics Canada. The CAW has launched a “Manufacturing Matters” campaign, part of which calls for governments to buy Canadian-made products.

The Department of National Defence says it needs up to 30 buses over the next three years to transport military personnel between bases

Harper renews his commitment to the internal combustion engine

You’ve all heard of the use of “just in time” inventory management that revolutionized the car industry.....now we have Harper using tax payer money to fund “just in time” pork barrel politics.

Why was this money not forthcoming a year ago when it would have done the most good, if it makes such good sense today? Flaherty himself turned this very investment Ford Essex Engine Plant down cold, on the basis that government isn’t very good at picking winners from losers. Flaherty would know. Let’s hope the electorate is more adept at picking winners from losers this time around.


Ottawa gives Ford plant a boost

STEVEN CHASE

Globe and Mail Update

September 3, 2008 at 2:22 PM EDT

WINDSOR, ONT. — Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Wednesday that Ottawa will give Ford Motor Co. of Canada up to $80-million in assistance to help it produce more fuel-efficient engines at a once-mothballed Windsor plant.

The pre-election aid is the first direct cash the Conservatives have given to auto makers since taking power and is a bid to quell charges they have done little to salve the pain being felt by Ontario's battered manufacturing sector.

The campaign-style announcement also helps shore up support for Tory candidates in the Windsor area including area MP Jeff Watson.


Forget Ford, here's Harper's real automotive manufacturing strategy



Federal Bus Purchase a Travesty, Desnoyers Says

July 27, 2007

Federal government plans to purchase up to 30 buses from a European company rather than a Canadian manufacturer is a travesty that will mean more hardship for Canadian workers, families and their communities, CAW Quebec Director Luc Desnoyers says.

Public Works Minister Michael Fortier is defending the federal government’s decision to select a German bus maker over two Canadian firms, including Quebec’s Prevost Car Inc. Fortier claims the federal government will save money by purchasing buses from Germany. CAW Local 911 represents workers at Prevost.

Desnoyers said Quebec manufacturing has been hard hit by the rise in the value of the Canadian dollar compared to the U.S., unfair trade agreements and the lack of federal government action to protect manufacturing jobs.

“This latest decision is a travesty for Quebec workers. The awarding of this bus contract to Prevost would have meant up to 60 laid off workers were called back as well as greater security for hundreds of other workers,” Desnoyers said. “The government’s decision doesn’t take into account the loss in tax revenues, lost wages within the community or the social impact on workers and their families.”

Since the beginning of 2007, Quebec has lost 43,500 manufacturing jobs, according to Statistics Canada. The CAW has launched a “Manufacturing Matters” campaign, part of which calls for governments to buy Canadian-made products.

The Department of National Defence says it needs up to 30 buses over the next three years to transport military personnel between bases

CAITI Offers $10,000 cash reward for a copy of Harper’s 200 page manual

We are told by Stephen Harper that 4 by-elections presently well under way are to be terminated because Parliament is dysfunctional.

Who made Parliament dysfunctional?

Evidently this was a premeditated strategy of the Harper Government as codified in Harper’s 200 page manual that was obtained by Don Martin of the Calgary Herald in the spring of 2007.

This “Parliamentary Obstruction Document” was provided to all Parliamentary Committee ( therfore Conservative) Chairman. One of those Chairman, who evidently suffers from Bernier’s disorder, left his copy behind in a committee room. His hand written notes were scribbled all over it.

That document was picked up by a non-Conservative, who then provided it to Don Martin of the Calgary Herald.

I recently asked Don for a copy. Here’s what Don Martion said to me on August 18, 2008:

“Nah, most of it is just photocopied procedural paper anyway. The juicy stuff is a slide show given to the chairs that was only about 30 pages.”

Guess what? That answer is unacceptable. I want a copy. The voting public has a right to know. This document would do much to put Harper’s “dysfunction” argument into perspective,

Don Martin did undertake about ten days ago to check with his source whether I could also receive a copy of this document. I heard noting in response.

I would ask Don to inform his source of my offer:

I am prepared to pay $10,000 for the first bone fide copy of this Parliamentary Obstruction Manual that is made available to CAITI and accepted by CAITI for payment.

The offer is good until September 15, 2008, the day that our dysfunctional Parliament was set to resume sitting

Please contact me at ObstructionManual@JimHadHisChance.ca

Stephen Harper: Prime Minister of False Pretenses

Harper is the Prime Minister of False Pretenses, namely the false pretenses he invokes for breaking his many promises.

Harper alleges that Parliament is dyfunctional (of Harper’ own making) , so he reneges on his fixed election date promise.

Harper alleges that Income trusts cause tax leakage (by Harper’s own manipulative math), so he reneges on his income trust promise.

Meanwhile the press is unable to connect the dots.......and so our democracy suffers and the Harper Despot continues unabated.


Harper is architect of parliamentary dysfunction
Frances Russell
Winnipeg Free Press
September 3, 2008

PRIME Minister Stephen Harper is rushing Canada into an October election on the pre­text that Parliament is dysfunctional. But it's his government, and particularly, Harper himself, who are the chief engineers of parliamentary dys­function.
Over a year ago, he ordered his office to draft a 200-page blueprint for disrupting and denigrating the work of com­mittees. Then he ordered it circulated to all Conservative committee chairs. Its advice runs the gamut from denying quorums to shutting commit­tees down by ordering chairs to flee the room, and from instructing Conservative wit­nesses not to appear to telling them to appear on the wrong day or at the wrong hour or both.
If the chair is an opposition MP, then the advice for all Conservatives is to treat the committee with disrespect and derision, including shouting and/or refusing to leave.
This recipe for dysfunction reached its apotheo­sis recently with the contemptuous behaviour of Conservative MPs and witnesses before the ethics committee examining the Conservatives' alleged abuse of more than $1 million in taxpayers' dol­lars for election advertising in 2006.
But the Harper-engendered dysfunction reaches beyond committees to Parliament itself. Fulfilling his election promise to the red-meat remnants of the old Reform party, the prime minister early in his mandate inserted what he knew was a Trojan horse right into the centre of Canadian parlia­mentary democracy -- the fixed election date.
In one fell swoop, as many constitutional and parliamentary experts warned him, he turned the central dynamic of our system of government on its head, robbing the sitting prime minister of the ultimate authority inherent in responsible govern­ment, the ability to dissolve Parliament to over­come obstruction -- or dysfunction.
Harper's fixed election law transferred that power to the opposition leaders. Then Harper compounded the error by committing Joe Clark's fatal mistake; believing he could govern as if he had a majority although he only had a minority. Canadian minority governments of recent mem­ory worked because the largest party recognized it had to strike accommodations with one or more opposition parties.
Harper, who apparently relishes his growing reputation as a schoolyard bully, isn't about to ne­gotiate anything with anyone unless the negotia­tion itself is a partisan coup.
So, for over a year, the prime minister has been trying to force his own government's defeat. The Liberals have been refusing to oblige him, prefer­ring (surprise, surprise) to use their new-found power to decide dissolution to choose the date best for them, not their chief opponent.
Frustrated past endurance, Harper has recently taken to complaining about the tyranny of the ma­jority. Given the prime minister's predeliction for brass knuckle partisanship without limit, this is, to say the least, disingenuous.
Any tyranny is antithetical to democratic forms. Most particularly antithetical to those norms is the tyranny of a minority that assumes the right to proceed as if it is the majority, refusing to bend or compromise on anything with anyone. And that last definition fits the Harperites like a glove.
So now Harper is bemoaning his own fixed election date law, saying it only works in a major­ity government situation. But he was just three months into his mi nority mandate when he boasted about its many noble democratic features. "Fixed election dates stop leaders from trying to manipu­late the calendar," he said in Victoria in May 2006. "They level the playing field for all parties."
Last week, the prime minister set out yet an­other far-fetched election rationalization in his shop window. He's free to call an election because, suddenly, he can't get his agenda passed. But that, too, doesn't accord with the facts. He has gotten almost everything he presented to Parliament through except for his crime bills. Even the Con­servatives' many friends in the media note that Harper has achieved the bulk of his electoral plat­form -- as much, therefore, as most majority gov­ernments manage -- and has little but scraps left. Or if he does have more, he's unwilling to share it with Parliament and the public.
Is Harper panicking, as Liberal leader Stéphane Dion says? Respected pollsters Harris-Decima and Nanos Research both put the Liberals in the lead just last week. Is he afraid of all the scan­dals bubbling away merrily on every burner on the Conservative stove? Afraid U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama will win in November? Afraid of bad economic news? A defi­cit?
Or is he following the disturbingly anti-demo­cratic and sinister playbook of his longtime friend and mentor, University of Calgary political sci­entist Tom Flanagan? Flanagan told Canadian Press Harper is betting on an increased minor­­ity, "enough to throw the Liberals into turmoil," giving the prime minister "a virtually free hand in Parliament" and an opportunity to launch "a prolonged war of attrition" ending in the Liberals' destruction.
Whatever the reason, the need for an election now -- subsuming four costly byelections -- has nothing to do with anything he's telling Canadians right now.

Flaherty reveals his total ignorance of campaign spending limits. Surprised?

I guess it should come as no surprise that Canada’s Finance Minister and a senior member of the Conservative Party would have no knowledge about campaign spending limits whatsoever.

Jim Flaherty claims “millions” will be spent in his riding attacking his poor blessed soul on the income trust issue. The reality is that CAITI can spend a maximum of $3500 in Flaherty’s riding, and a total of $150,000 nation wide.

Unlike the Conservative Party, CAITI will respect Election Canada’s campaign spending rules. No “in and out” for us thank you very much. We are a group of law abiding tax payers.

Canada's Flaherty stands by tax ahead of election
Tue Sep 2, 2008 6:09pm EDT




OTTAWA, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Canada's Finance Minister said on Tuesday he will not revisit his controversial policy to tax income trusts even though the issue may return to haunt him in an upcoming election campaign.

In an interview with Business News Network television, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty was asked whether he might bow to demands of disgruntled investors hurt by the new tax and soften the rules, particularly for energy trusts.

"No, its the law now," he answered.

"I know they're going to target me and I've been told how many millions of dollars they've put aside just to target me in my riding, and I guess that's part of life, but the decision we made was a decision for the good of the country and for future generations," he said.

Flaherty stunned investors in October 2006 with a plan to begin taxing the then C$200 billion ($187 billion) income trust sector as of 2011, breaking a promise of the governing Conservative Party.

A group of angry investors has been lobbying hard against Flaherty ever since and demanding a reversal of the policy. The opposition Liberal Party also opposed the change.

Trusts are investment vehicles that had become highly popular because they are structured to pay little or no corporate tax, allowing them to distribute cash directly to unitholders.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has suggested he will request the dissolution of Parliament this week and call and election for Oct. 14.

Flaherty denied that the leader wanted a snap election to avoid governing during tough economic times, repeating that Canada's fiscal record is among the strongest in the industrialized world and that "there is no deficit looming".

"I think the motivation for an election now is simply that the House of Commons doesn't function well. I lived through that for two and a half years," he said.

Harper is a like a Deere caught in the headlines.

It's about the economy stupid:

John Deere factory in Ontario to close, 800 jobs lost

Updated Tue. Sep. 2 2008 4:18 PM ET

The Canadian Press

WELLAND, Ont. -- Tractor maker Deere & Company (NYSE:DE) is closing its factory in Welland, Ont., and moving the work outside Canada by the end of 2009, costing the Ontario economy another 800 manufacturing jobs.

The Welland factory, one of the city's largest employers, makes utility vehicles and attachments for commercial and consumer equipment and for agricultural uses.

The U.S.-based company says it's consolidating its manufacturing operations to improve efficiency and profits, and the work will be moved to plants in Wisconsin and Mexico.

Deere, makers of the famed green-painted John Deere tractor, announced Tuesday that it will take a US$90 million after-tax hit related to the closure. It said about half of this charge will be recorded in the fourth quarter of this year.

Gator utility vehicles, now made at Welland, will move to Horicon, Wis. Cutting and loading attachments will be transferred to Deere's operations in Monterrey and Saltillo, Mexico.

On the New York Stock Exchange, the company's shares were trading down $1.83 at $68.74.

If only Stephen Harper were a straight up guy