Jack Layton’s sudden aversion to blacked out documents?

When did Jack Layton along with virtually every other politician in Ottawa and news journalist in this country develop their aversion to the use of blacked out documents by the Harper government?

This sudden aversion to blacked out documents occurred sometime between October 31, 2006, the day that will live in infamy, and now.

As a Canadian born citizen and a taxpayer, I can only wish that I was accorded with the same level of righteous indignation that is accorded to Afghan detainees when it comes to learning the truth from the Harper government.

Why is it considered acceptable to Jack Layton and virtually every journalist in this country that proof of tax leakage be allowed to take the form of 18 pages of blacked out documents when it comes to destroying $35 billion of Canadians’ hard earned retirement savings, and yet the standards that are accorded to Afghan detainees is much higher? In this respect Jack Layton is no different than the Editorial Board of the Globe and Mail, National Post or the Toronto Star, as they are all screaming hypocrites when it comes to the uniform application of disclosure requirements, for something as fundamental to our daily lives, as the cradle of our democracy, namely the Parliament of Canada.

In the industry where I spent my professional life (investment banking) the non-uniform application of disclosure, known as selective disclosure, is a punishable offence, as it explicitly contravenes securities laws. So why is selective disclosure so rampant in other walks of life, including something as fundamental as our democratic institutions like Parliament and Parliaments’ supposed watchdog, the press.

The whole income trust issue for me has always been about the issue of disclosure and transparency and hence government accountability. If one’s government can get away with a lie on something as inherently provable or disprovable as tax leakage, then government is no longer accountable to its people and could get away with virtually anything

Hey did it not occur to Jim Travers of the the Toronto Star or Jeffrey Simpson of the Globe and Mail or every other journalist in this country that this might even some day may include the handing over of Afghan detainees with the foreknowledge that they were going to be tortured, as reprehensible as that would be?

Acts of deceit on the part of governments as well as people, always have their beginnings. They also have their ends, as hopefully we are now witnessing. Which does nothing to excuse Jack Layton or any member of the Canadian Press who turned a blind eye (to quote the disreputable Peter MacKay) to the government’s use of blacked out documents as their empty “proof” of tax leakage. The income trust tax policy was nothing shy of an unjustified act of terrorism on the savings of taxpaying Canadians for the sole purpose of entrenching the corporate status quo and enriching certain people, like the CEOs of Canada’s life insurers, while impoverising others and depriving them of their life savings,

Apparently these are the ideals by which the Canadian media and the NDP govern themselves. It is the polar opposite of fair play. Only when faced with the reprehensible acts of possible torture are these sycophant journalists and politicians awakened from their inherently corrupt slumber and acts of professional negligence.

I learned within less than 24 hours that the central premise of Harper’s income trust policy, namely alleged tax leakage, was in fact a hoax. A demonstrable hoax. It only took me ONE PHONE CALL, as a private citizen no less, to a former colleague on Bay Street on the morning of November 1, 2006 for me to learn that the issue of tax leakage had been fully addressed and completely debunked during the Goodale Consultative Round of September 2005 and was address in the report prepared by HLB Decision Economics in collaboration with the Department of Finance entitled: “The tax revenue implications of income trusts”> This report provided definitive proof that tax leakage did not exist and revealed the faulty premise on which any such arguments were being advanced, by those with a vested interest in advancing such false premises.

Meanwhile the only “proof” of tax leakage offered up by the Harper government on the matter of tax leakage was 18 pages of blacked out documents. This complete absence of proof that relied on blacked out documents was, however sufficient for the entire NDP caucus to vote in unanimous support of this sweeping tax policy that brought enormous costs to all Canadians, enumerated below. The same is true of the press. Jack Layton’s love for blacked out documents is matched by that of every new reporter and editorial board in this country apart from Diane Francis, the only stalwart journalist this country has. The rest of them are shills, too numerous to mention and too petty to engage by name. These people’s betrayal of their professional responsibilities went so far as to vilify anyone who dared challenge the established authority of the Harper government to issue blacked out documents as “proof:” of tax leakage, such as occurred when Eric Reguly of the Globe and Mail called for trust lobbyists to be encased in concrete and flung into Lake Ontario, or when Terry Corcoran called for me to be vaporized, regardless of the occasion.

The very same people who are using their newspapers to advocate violence against those who seek the truth from their government of which they are natural born citizens and whose family members fought wars to uphold are probably the same bleeding hearts who are rushing to the defense of Afghan detainees, for whom the principle of innocent before guilty applies. I wished the same principles would apply to me and the 2.5 million income trust investors who were denied these very principles that seem to be the exclusive reserve of Afghan detainees.

Why is Canada’s international reputation so singularily important when it comes to the treatment of Afghan detainees, something which few people would have even known about had it not been for the attention that we are bringing to these alleged abuses (which I commend us for doing), when the matter of our international reputation and the integrity of the Canadian capital markets was shattered by our governments handling of the income trust matter that evaporated billions in investors money overnight, with zero proof to justify such arbitrary actions. This was a case where our reputation was destroyed on its own, without the need to inform others about it, as in the case of the Afghan detainee matter. If you have any doubt about the extent to which our reputation was destroyed by that act of a third world country, I refer you to the speech delivered to the Prospectors Convention in Toronto by the CEO of the Toronto Stock Exchange in 2008.

The irrefutable consequences of Jack Layton’s and Stephen Harper’s income trust fraud of a policy:

- the wholesale takeover of devalued Canadian trusts by foreigners like Abu Dhabi Energy acquiring Prime West Energy or state owned Korean National Oil Company acquiring Harvest Energy Trust

- the wholesale takeover of trusts by public sector pension plans like PSP, OMERS and Caisse, in which these pension finds pay zero tax and are exempted from the 31.5% tax that applies to trusts held in RRSPs, creating an unlevel playing field as between the 75% of Canadians without pensions and the 25% with pensions

- a massive loss of essential tax revenue of over $1 billion a year, that will soon grow to over $7 billion a year, if this policy is not reversed, caused by the above takeovers and those soon to follow

- a complete break down of our Parliamentary Democracy in which major tax legislation is being passed on falsehoods and allegations like tax leakage, whose only “proof” tales the form of blacked out documents (sound like a recurrent theme?)

- the loss of an essential investment choice for Canadians seeking to provide themselves with retirement income, without having to resort to the inherently flawed alternatives like ABCP (requiring taxpayer bailout) or derivative investments like Manulife’s Income Plus, whose issuance almost brought Manulife to its knees (and almost requiring tax payer bailout).

- the permanent loss of $35 billion in Canadians retirement savings

- destroying a domestic source of low cost of capital that put Canada and Canadian businesses at a distinct competitive advantage for the sole purpose of appeasing those who benefit from an entrenched status quo, namely corporate managers.