Thursday, December 10, 2009

My response to Peter Donolo



Michael Ignatieff’s Chief of Staff, Peter Donolo, wrote a letter to the members of the Liberal Caucus today that reads:

“In 2010 our task is to earn the trust and support of those millions of Canadians who are yearning for an alternative to the callous and cynical Harper Conservatives.”

Well if that is truly the case, then you can start by exposing the lies of the Stephen Harper government that began in earnest on October 31, 2006 when Harper claimed that income trusts cause tax leakage (a patent lie) as his justification for a policy that caused the following outcomes:

- 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

- 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

Only then will the Liberals demonstrate that as a party you stand for Canadians and the interests of Canadians, rather than the special interests like Manulife and Power Corporation who successfully lobbied the “callous and cynical Harper Conservatives” into taxing income trusts and causing a litany of adverse outcomes for their selfish gains.

This is as simple a task as you could hope for. All the heavy lifting has been done for you. All you need to do is apply your principles to the situation. We look forward to learning what principles the Liberal Party stands for.

Only then will you have any hope of earning the trust and support of Canadians.

6 comments:

Dr Mike said...

These guys better show us something & soon as all trust investors are losing faith with the Liberal party of Canada.

They continue to mystify us as they flounder from one unfulfilling policy bit to another---they hammer away at things that have no resonance with the guy on the street.

The sooner that the Liberals & all of Canada realize that it is absolutely necessary for all individuals to solidify an income stream , then the better we will be.

As gov`t debt skyrockets out of sight , it will be necessary to cut services such as healthcare & pensions making it essential & vital that each person have the sustainable income to pay for these services themselves.

Income trusts were the way.

Forget about screwing us over with garbage like the HST & get to work saving investment vehicles like income trusts that will pay our way in the future.

Dr Mike Popovich

Anonymous said...

Perfect Brent

This Harper is really skating away.

It will be March before any traction can be made by this turtle Liberal party.

JIC

Anonymous said...

The Libs need to wake up and smell the coffee. Show some grit damn it!

Kephalos said...

If the Liberals knew how to do simple sums like "2 + 2", they'd see some similarities between the Income Trust Debacle and the Afghan Torture file.

#1: blacked-out memos and documents

#2: hiding behind National Security

Ahh...

Make that "3 + 3".

Nothing happens in the Federal Govt except by the whim of His Prime Majority of One.

#3 The PMO punishes trust investors and Afghan farmers.

Are the Liberals counting yet???

Anonymous said...

OOPS! Didn't realize I had stumbled into Lib territory. Just a couple of questions--why did the U.S. and Australian gov'ts. put some controls on the abuses of income trusts by corporations several years before the Conservatives were forced to do the same thing?
As for the Afghan issue, I am all for transparency. I would like to see the record for Afghan detainees from 2001 to 2006? Paul Martin recognized in 2003 there was a problem. Bill Graham did not act on this until 2005. Perhaps it was an inadequate Liberal agreement with Afghanistan which might have contributed to the problem which the current government is trying to clean up. My next question is why Colvin did not discuss this with the Generals at the time, or at least mark his emails as urgent, rather than burying them in lengthy documents? Just some thoughts.

Fillibluster said...

Anonymous:

Australia and the US?

I don't know why? Perhaps you could tell us.

While you are at it, perhaps you could also tell us why Flaherty lied when he said that the US had shut down income trusts. For if that were the case then I guess the US wouldn;t have the $480 million Master Limited Partnership (MLP) market place that is a growing and vibrant market would they? MLP's being the EXACT SAME thing as an income trust.

You know what they say about a little knowledge being a dangerous thing?

Are you familiar with Google?

Good. Perhaps you should do a little research of your own before parroting the Harper government's endless lies.....like Harper's HUGE LIE about tax leakage, etc. etc. etc. when it comes to the topic of income trusts.