The best antidote to the Globe's claims that Ignatieff is spineless

Today’s Editorial Cartoon depicts Michael Ignatieff as spineless vis-a-vis the Budget. The immediate antidote for this, is for Ignatieff to call upon the Harper Government to adopt the Marshall Savings Plan for the benefit of all Canadian taxpayers, the 75% of Canadians without pensions and the incomes that are at severe risk of imminent decline for the 2.5 million Canadians for whom these investments are like 2.5 million full and part time jobs, not to mention the $6 billion in ANNUAL taxes that these Canadians pay to Ottawa every year on this retirement income that is at risk, no different than the $1.5 billion in annual taxes that this policy has cost all taxpayers to date.

By doing so, Ignatieff will place Harper in the uncomfortable position or explaining why he nuked $35 billion of Canadians life savings and why he introduced a policy based on the patent lie about tax leakage that has seen 51 takeovers of trust that caused REAL tax leakage and for Harper to stand NAKED and SPINELESS in defending why he will not immediately adopt the Marshall Savings Plan in Budget. That will be Harper’s argument to make, while the rest of us can sit back and laugh/scorn, while he attempts to defend his continued rape of seniors....or watch him capitulate to Ignatieff’s demand. This is not something that the Liberals should bring the government down over, but rather tell Harper that it is a test of his ethics rather than the Liberal’s resolve. To bring the government down over this, would only give Harper respite from his callous disregard for Canadian seniors. To demand the Marshall Plan, but not to threaten to bring the government down, is the only scenario in which Harper will declare himelf to be in callous defiance of seniors, as opposed to mere defiance of the Liberals. He will be asked to make his bed, AND to sleep in it. Let Harper be the Prime Minister when the next foreign takeover of a trust occurs or the next take out of a trust by a pension fund who he arbitrarily exempted from the tax that RRSP investors have to pay, under his sham policy of “fairness” and “leveling the playing field”.

No one, especially the Globe and Mail could depict Ignatieff’s stance on Flaherty’s Budget as “spineless” if he were to force Flaherty to explain why the Marshall Savings Plan is not part of Budget 2010 given that the MSP is a win win win solution that meets all four of the Liberals Budget demands (jobs, pensions, fairness, and deficit reduction) and the Marshall Savings Plan is supported by 79.6% of all Canadians and 85% of Flaherty’s Conservative followers.

Failing which, the Globe’s claims of spineless will be vaild, making this the first time the Globe has been of any help to me on the income trust issue, as the Globe is more intent on printing Harper’s patent lies about tax leakage or completely bogus articles, like on Budget Day, entitled “ Flaherty’s trust tax not so scary after all” that contained a litany of falsehoods and quack cures from the spineless Globe and Mail.

Over to you Michael Ignatieff. Just do what the situation and the facts on the ground call for.....call for the Marshall Savings Plan. Among its many virtues, it does wonders for one’s spine. Stand up to Harper and stand up for Canadians whose retirement savings were devastated by those nefarious forces behind the income trust tax. The forces that proved Harper’s spine to be so malleable and weak, and on whose behalf he dutifully bent over as Prime Minister.

These completely spineless jerks who went to the government to do a complete end run around their shareholders and true owners, and in complete defiance of their fiduciary duties to shareholders and owners (as reported in the same Globe and Mail (November 2, 2006):

"High-profile directors and CEOs, meanwhile, had approached Mr. Flaherty personally to express their concerns: Many felt they were being pressed into trusts because of their duty to maximize shareholder value, despite their misgivings about the structure. Paul Desmarais Jr., the well-connected chairman of Power Corp. of Canada, even railed against trusts in a conversation with Prime Minister Stephen Harper on a trip to Mexico."