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.