Sunday, December 13, 2009

Harper: Head of Canada's New Blacked Out Government


I instructed the Liberal Party of Canada to make an issue of Harper's propensity for blacked out documents over TWO YEARS AGO!

Man, are they ever #!$#ing slow on the uptake!

Almost makes you wonder who is more fond of blacked out documents? Harper or the Liberals?


To: Herb Metcalfe, Andrew Bevan, John McCallum , David Hurl, Ralph Goodale, Jim Peterson, Garth Turner, Scott Brison , John McKay, Senator Grafstein ,Paul Szabo, Mike McNair
Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 07:41:53 -0500

Subject: The Liberal's Messaging on Income Trusts

As a person who has spent an inordinate amount of time on this issue (pro bono) and someone who has been proven correct in his predictions (I wasn’t the only one) about the impact of this policy and its many far reaching effects, please allow me to provide you with some unsolicited advice:

In my opinion, your “messaging” on income trusts is in need of work, as evidenced by Dion’s speech in Edmonton yesterday (income trust excerpts below) . In my opinion this messaging is dated and stale and does not resonate with “the larger audience”. Believe me when I say “Who really cares about restoring two thirds of investors’ lost savings apart from the investors themselves?”.

That messaging of restoring two thirds of the lost value yours was great for February 13, 2007, the day you announced your policy position of a 10% tax. It is clearly not great today, as it ignores all the corroborating events that have occurred since that time all of which are god sends to our cause and in making our/your case . This current messaging will gain you as many voters as it lose voters, witness the editorials following the Calgary consultation a few weeks ago. You gave the press nothing new or substantive to ruminate over, apart from the fact that you were consulting with affected parties which was then cynically portrayed by the press in strictly political terms. You didn’t attack the core falsehoods of this policy or make the direct causal link to takeovers. You didn’t mention the blacked out documents released under ATI. The government’s tax leakage analysis is clearly wrong in that it leaves out 38% of the taxes paid on income trusts. It’s a proven and verifiable fact. You know that, I know that. This is a scandal that is being masked. Who benefits from that?

You have to elevate this issue to the level where all Canadians realize this is negative to them and their children's and grand children's’ futures. That’s easy: loss of sovereignty, loss of general tax revenue. The evidence is firmly in place. Use it. Connect the dots. We’re not making this stuff up or falsely portraying how our issue so readily morphs into vastly larger issues and themes like accountability, transparency, sovereignty, lost tax revenues, hollowing out, betrayal at the hands of government, hidden agenda, gross inequities (pension plan carve out), gross ineptitude (BCE, Prime West) etc.

Make the policy connection. People need to have their “entrenched” views, which have only been established by resonating “intuitive” rhetoric, challenged through the process of “cognitive dissonance” using known facts and subsequent events. Cognitive dissonance is the only way people will rethink their current view on something. People need to be challenged with an “outlier observation” which is inconsistent with their world view and you then offer them an alternative explanation for the entire ball of wax. There are a vast number of “outlier” observations in our quiver. For example, 7 of the 25 largest takeovers of the last 5 years have occurred in the mere 11 months that this policy has been in existence and as a direct consequence of this policy. Many other foreign takeovers will follow. The arguments against this policy are endless.

Which Canadian is unaware about what the reasons for Harper’s shut down of income trusts were?(BCE and Telus), and what ultimately happened in the short space of 8 months (private equity takeout of BCE and the LOSS of $793 million a year in taxes)? How many Canadians think selling our energy to the middle east is a good idea? Prime West is a trust......hmm? Cognitive dissonances takes the form of 18 pages of blacked out documents, BCE going private in face of denial to become a trust. Abu Dhabi purchase of Prime West, Prentice’s non announcement about foreign takeovers maybe yes maybe no solely designed to chill the takeovers without addressing the issue itself and designed simply to avoid further embarrassments from Abu Dhabi’s #2 through 250.

The Liberal party simply needs to appeal to the enormous base of support that is latent in the minds of Canadians. Latent yet visceral concerns about issues like foreign takeovers (72% of Canadians concerned according to recent poll). Canadians innate concerns about accountability and transparency of government as viscerally conjured up by 18 pages of blacked out documents (92% of Canadian think its wrong – Angus Reid poll).

Play to Harper’s weaknesses and attack his presumed strengths. Is there a hidden agenda with this man? (blacked out documents)! Is he a strong leader? ( Abu Dhabi yes/no!) Does he make good policy decisions? (BCE?) Can he be trusted ( income trust mother of all lies). These questions don’t even have to be explicitly asked. When faced with the evidence in the proper way and framed in the correct context, people will ask these questions of themselves. What is more powerful than that?

This issue is a gold mine that is not being mined properly, less so to make a point about the income issue per se, but for you to make the larger issues that resonate with every voter and not just a handful of voters. Our country. Our democracy.

Start the process by calling the Harper government for what it is: Canada's New Blacked-Out Government or some such similar motto, that should be repeated at every opportunity across the country by the Liberals, with blacked-out documents in hand.

Let me know if you disagree. I would like to help in any way I can, hence our desire to align our campaign spending with yours for maximum “Liberal” effect. We have a huge vested interest in seeing the Liberals form the next government. So too the entire population, they just need to know why. A lot of good material is going to waste.


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

647 505-2224 (cell)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Brent:

I applaud your continuing devotion to the cause and am amazed how you can voluntarily continue to bang your head against the brick wall of politics.

It seems obvious that principle is irrelevant, whether for the Liberals, NDP or Cons (possibly not for the Bloc, at least on one issue). Honesty, fairness, openness, justice are all apparently superfluous concepts in Politics, so it is not surprising that you are a voice in the wilderness.

The only incentive the Liberals have to belatedly take up the cause that you have championed is if they see significant advantage in it. If it would bring in massive amounts of campaign funds (and they have been repeatedly asking me for money after I gave to your campaign, to no avail) or votes, I think they'd embrace the cause, especially since the Trust horse is long out of the barn, been sold for dogfood, and has almost be totally consumed at this point.

Personally, at this point, the only thing that might make me vote Liberal in the next election is if their stand on the trusts warrants it, and at this point, it is no longer obvious what a just and affordable solution might be. But I'd be holding my nose as I voted, because I can't think of any stand that the Liberals have taken that is better than the status quo. Who really cares which untrustworthy Party is in control? Having a paralyzed Parliament might be best. If they can't do much, they can't do much harm.

So bottom line is, if you can't show the Liberals "what's in it for them", you are wasting your time by continuing the battle.

Hope you at least took the opportunity to profit from the dislocations caused by the Tory Trust Tax.

Alan

Fillibluster said...

Alan:

I guess I am different from these impervious Liberals. If someone told me day after day that I was a flaming idiot, like they are, I’d do something about it. In fact it would probably only take one such remonstration for me to act. With these co-opted clowns who call themselves Liberals and representatives of the people, it has taken over two years and still nothing. Truly amazing!

I will haunt these morons to their graves.


Brent

Dr Mike said...

Guys

How has the Canadian system devolved into the disaster we have today.

We have a bully for a PM who has yes-men & yes-women as underlings--not a one with an independent thought.

We have an opposition who are all over the map without any serious vote-getting policy.

We have political parties that will accept blacked-out documents as the norm as a way to save their political skins.

We have citizens who have been taken advantage-of in order to allow big business an upper hand.

Sad to say , but this is not the Canada that I had envisioned even 10 years ago.

So what is the answer??

It is there somewhere --the unfortunate thing is that we do not have the leadership with the cojones or the desire to find it.

Good luck to us.

Making it on our own seems to be the only viable option.

Dr Mike Popovich

Anonymous said...

Until the Liberals DO THE RIGHT THING with the Income Trust taxation issue, they will be considered as an integral part of 'the con sting' that was perpetrated on Canadians who had saved and invested for their own retirement and, at the same time, afforded government (through taxation) and corporations (through direct investment) the means to maintain a civil, caring and sovereign country.
Same goes for the NDP.

Welcome to Canada's own NEW 3 Amigo's.