Ed Clark did more to balloon Canada’s deficit than Stephen Harper himself

It really boggles my mind that anyone would take Ed Clark seriously. Here he is preaching to Stephen Harper that the government should increase taxes to address Canada’s $56 billion dollar deficit. Just for added effect, Ed Clark invokes all Canadians in making his self serving argument, as if to suggest that he speaks for all Canadians or is even in touch with average Canadians? Could Ed Clark be any more hypocritical if he tried, after all it was Ed Clark who crows about being the driving force behind Ontario’s and BC’s adoption of the HST, at least that’s what he was telling all his corporate clients at the TD Bank after Ontario announced it was ushering in the HST and Ed Clark patting himself on the back in an email about the role he played.

In order to assuage the masses and to buy temporary political cover from such an anti-populist move as ushering in an HST on everything, the conniving folks in government decided to issue what can only be described as “bribery cheques” to voters in amounts as much as $1,000. The overall cost of this bribery exercise, designed to make the grossly offensive HST tax more palatable was $4.3 billion for Ontario and $1.3 billion for BC and prompted Quebec to demand $2.6 billion, retroactively for having brought HST into practice in 1991.

And where did this money come from? It came from Ottawa and therefore Ed Clark’s pet HST project is responsible for $5.9 billion of Canada’s $56 billion deficit for 2009. A full 10% of the budget. Money borrowed from future generation to fund Ed Clark’s pet project of today. Well done Ed Clark! And now he’s the one most vocal about complaining about the deficit! Talk about a Benedict Arnold.

But it gets worse, when you stop and ask yourself about who is the beneficiary of this new HST tax that will raise over $4 billion in additional annual ax revenue for BC and Ontario? Surely this money is going to be dpeloyed for the benefit of all taxpayers and help deal with the deficits that are being run at the provicial level. Sadly the answer to that is NO, as this money is being deployed for the sole benefit of reducing the corporate tax rate for corporations like TD Bank.

I can’t think of anything more hypocritical than Ed Clark maligning the government for large deficits that Ed Clark himself did more than any other Canadian to produce, than for him to turn around and preach on behalf of all Canadians for an increase in taxes to deal with the deficit he helped create? Ed Clark may profess to speak for Canadians but he does not. He does not even speak on behalf of logic as all of his arguments are completely lacking in internal consistency or sound reasoning.

In order for Ed Clark to preserve any credibility on the matter that he has decided to publicly weigh in on and to embrace some measure of internal consistency in his arguments would be for him to join my call to the federal and provincial governments to redirect the monies they collect under the about to be introduced HST and direct it to reducing the deficit and for programs that benefit ALL those who pay it, rather than some fat cat Bay Street bank executives like himself and for the sole benefit of the shareholders of TD Bank and the corporate clientele that he was crowing to less than nine months ago in that self congratulatory email.

The other measure that Ed Clark would support if he were really concerned about Canada’s massive run away deficit would be calling for the adoption of the Marshall Savings Plan in Budget 2010 to stem the $1.5 billion in annual taxes that have already been lost by the absured double taxation and resultant foreign takeover of income trusts so that the remaining $6 billion in annual taxes can be preserved.

There you go, two initiatives proposed by me to deal with 20% of Canada’s $56 billion annual deficit. The third one would be to eliminate the capital gains treatment of executive stock options for CEO’s like Ed Clark, since they have to learn to pay employment income taxes like the rest of us and reserve capital gains taxation for situations where investors actually have capital at risk.

How about it Ed? Put your money where your mouth is. Do you really believe in what you are saying about reducing Canada’s deficit that you helped to produce? Do you actually believe that tax rates should be increased? If so, you will support me in these three tax policy proposals. Failing which, you will be a hypocrite.