Thursday, November 19, 2009

HST: "There are always rats in these debates," Duncan said




"There are always rats in these debates," Duncan said, without naming any individuals.

Well, I can think of two rats right off the top of my head......Harper and McGuinty along with Jim Flaherty and Dwight Duncan himself, for hoisting this HST on an grossly overtaxed and unsuspecting public.

But “debate”? What debate is Dwight Duncan talking about?

There was no debate whatsoever.

More like divine intervention by Ed Clark, CEO of TD Bank and the rest of his cheering section from the corporate sector who want to tax Ontarians’ heating bills and create a huge underground economy to rival illegal cigarettes, so they can enjoy windfall profits for doing absolutely squat, and with no commitment to increase investment or create new jobs, which is the illusory promise of this HST tax from Hell.....err Harper.

Ed Clark’s HST will simply be to Dalton McGuinty and the Ontario Liberals what Ed Clark’s NEP was to Pierre Trudeau and the Alberta Liberals.

PS: Are there any Alberta Liberals post the NEP of 1981? Will there be any Ontario Liberals post the actual implementation and point-of-purchase sticker shock of 2010? I doubt it, unless the party is comprised of masochists.


Fed Tories pushed for HST: Duncan


By JONATHAN JENKINS AND ANTONELLA ARTUSO , QUEEN'S PARK BUREAU
Sun Media
19th November 2009

The federal Tories pushed, prodded and ultimately paid Ontario to adopt the harmonized sales tax and any effort to disown those actions smells like a rodent, Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan said yesterday.

"There are always rats in these debates," Duncan said, without naming any individuals.

"It's always funny to watch those individuals who are trying to deny the $4.3 billion their government is giving us. It's fun to watch."

Owen Sound-Bruce-Grey MP Larry Miller raised the ire of his provincial seatmate and fellow Tory Bill Murdoch earlier this year for disavowing his government's role in the tax and Sarnia's Pat Davidson has been quoted as encouraging seniors to fight against the HST as well.

But Duncan said Ontario would not and could not merge its retail sales tax with the federal GST for a 13% HST without plenty of encouragement and $4.3 billion of federal money. "The feds certainly pushed us," Duncan said, adding any doubt about where the federal Conservatives stand on the HST should be erased when Finance Minister Jim Flaherty introduces enabling legislation sometime before next March. "I look forward to the debate in the federal house and I look forward to Mr. Flaherty restating what he has stated publicly on a number of occasions, as well as the prime minister."

VOW TO DELAY

The provincial Progressive Conservatives have fought hard against the HST and are vowing to delay it but haven't committed to scrapping it should they get elected. Premier Dalton McGuinty said he suspects that deep down inside, the opposition supports the HST. "I think they don't have any ideas of their own in terms of what we need to do to create 600,000 more jobs, for example," McGuinty told reporters. "I think, honestly, they believe that although there's some challenges associated with this on a personal level for Ontarians, this is the best thing for us to do together." In jurisdictions where governments have harmonized sales taxes and gone on to electoral defeat, their successors have left the tax regime largely in place. "It's a progressive, modern characteristic of taxation," McGuinty said. "We took a long hard look at this before we got into this and we knew that it would be fraught with political challenges." PC MPP Lisa MacLeod said provincial Tories are deadset against the tax and will do what they can to delay it, even if doing so puts in jeopardy personal and corporate income tax cuts scheduled to begin Jan. 1. "We're going to continue to use every legislative tactic at our disposal to extend this debate," MacLeod said. "Our electorate expects us to fight Mr. McGuinty tooth and nail on this."

5 comments:

Dr Mike said...

Imagine a group of politicians actually consulting with members of the real "public".

These clowns consult with the same old group of think tank folks & CEO s--oops . almost forgot special interest groups.

The real public gets no input whatsoever.

All you have to do is look at the senate hearings on income trusts back in 2007--the real public got "squat" in terms of time--what a Joke as it was this particular group who had the most to lose & who would be most affected.

What did we get instead , a steady diet of CEO cheeseheads.

Where did that leave the little guy , screwed again.

The real public always loses.

Dr Mike

Anonymous said...

Good morning Brent,If I were Dalton McGuinty (and I'm awfully glad that I am NOT) I would wait until next June to 'announce' that I will be lowering the PST component of the new HST by one or, possibly two percentage points such that the 'combined' rate of HST would be 12% or, 11% so as to assuage the electorate going into a Fall election campaign and blunt the opposiition from Tim Hudak. This would be an (old) Liberal trick to force Hudak to say either that it was 'fiscallyirresponsible' to do so for revenue reasons and thus come across as a tax grabber or, to say that it wasn't enough of a reduction but, where would HE cut spending in order to offset the revenue loss from a greater reduction. The problem with this approach is; that the goddamn McGuinty 'mob' spent every dime that flowed in during the boom (giving NO tax cuts to Ontarians) and now are grappling with an atrocious $25 billion deficit (as a result of out-of-control spending and now, falling tax revenues) from which they can grant no tax relief just when we need it most. Dwight Duncan's inability to know even where the money is going was laid bare in an article in Pravda (aka the Toronto Star) on Saturday, Nov. 7th in which it was revealed that he had appointed a "special advisory panel" of 5 other cabinet ministers and 3 gov't MPPs to help him decide where 'potential savings' could be found. In the same breath he said that 2 ministries (Health and Education) would NOT be included in the review! Between these two ministries, they account for 75% of government spending!!! I mean, W-T-F??? You're absolutely correct that if there are ANY Liberals left in Ontaxio after 2010, it is equivalent to there being ANY Liberals left in Alberta after the imposition of "Red Ed's" NEP back in '81!

Cheers,H

Fillibluster said...

H:

Hugh: That would be one form of possible remedial action to avert the political consequences of this predicable policy blunder, except it would confirm that Dwight hasn’t got the dwightest idea of where the money is coming from, as I am sure a 1% cut in the PST outweighs the revenue consequences of simply abandoning the HST policy. A policy that should never have seen the light of day......beyond the dining room table of Grano, where the first helping of HST was served up by Ed Clark for Dalton’s insane consumption.

Brent

Anonymous said...

Insightful post, but can we change, second sentence "two" to "four" rats? We seem to have a colony with 4 individuals named and Mr. Clark's involvement makes 5 "heavy" weights in the colony. (yes still laughing about the other "fat / thin" post from earlier)

I was encouraged to receive this from our realtor via email ... we signed the form letter. This one seems to be one of the better anti HST petition campaigns out there. I hope it's cool to share with others. Some indicators of where to expect the underground economy to grow ...

Earlier this week, the Government of Ontario formally launched its latest assault on homeowners, purchasers and sellers with the introduction of legislation to harmonize the provincial sales tax and goods and services tax.

Homebuyers and sellers will pay 8 per cent more on legal fees, appraisals, real estate commissions, home inspection fees, and moving costs, adding about $1,500 in new taxes to the average residential real estate transaction in Ontario.

For homeowners the HST will also add hundreds of dollars in additional tax on utility bills (gas, electricity and home heating fuel), on home renovation labour, the cost of lawn upkeep or landscaping and the cost of snow removal.

Please help Ontario REALTORS® fight this tax. In less than 30 seconds you can send an email to your MPP asking them to vote against sales tax harmonization legislation, by clicking here: http://bit.ly/stopthehst

Fillibluster said...

Anonymous:

Good suggestion!

I just went to this site and fired off a letter of protest on the HST tax, by going to:

http://bit.ly/stopthehst

It took all of 30 seconds.

Brent