Friday, August 27, 2010

Is the Globe able to back up its claim?


Today’s Globe has an article about Jim Flaherty, entitled “One day, we’ll look back and thank Jim Flaherty”, in which they gloss over his income trust policy fiasco with the statement:

“Then, in 2006, Flaherty’s killing of income trusts wiped out more than $20 billion in stock market value overnight. Although the move was probably necessary to preserve tax revenues, it released a tsunami of vituperation from a business community that was none too happy to have the punch bowl taken away just as the party was getting started.”

Was probably necessary to preserves tax revenues? What kind of justification is that? Probably? Would the Globe and Mail like to share with its readers how it makes the claim that income trusts probably adversely affect tax revenues? Did the Globe flip a coin or use a roulette wheel to determine this probable outcome? Meanwhile, since when is “probable” the standard of certainty to apply when engaging in far reaching public policy making, when the matter at hand can be ascertained with absolute certainty as HLB Decision Economics was able to do in their study of November 2005 entitled The Tax Revenue Implications of Income Trusts that was available to all (including Jim Flaherty and the Globe and Mail) and which concluded that income trust s DO NOT cause the loss of tax revenue.

Furthermore, if income trusts “probably” cause the loss of tax revenue, then why is Flaherty hiding his tax leakage analysis behind 18 pages of blacked out documents? Could it be that he is lying? Dare the Globe and Mail have the journalistic integrity challenge Jim Flaherty to prove his case, as Diane Francis of the Financial Post did in her article entitled Prove the case or drop the tax?

Perhaps the Globe and Mail would like to take a more disciplined approach to this matter and let its readers know with greater certainty about whether Flaherty’s policy actions were just and whether his (and their) assertions about tax leakage are true or not, rather than adopting Flaherty’s reckless and cavalier attitude to policy matters of great import, since even the Globe admits that $20 billion (actually $35 billion) of Canadians’ life savings were lost, while failing to acknowledge that Flaherty’s actions actually CAUSED the loss of tax revenues amounting to over $1 billion per annum from the wave of foreign takeover of income trusts than ensued. All to fix a non-existent tax leakage problem. Could the man be more incompetent if he tried and the Globe more intent on covering this story up?

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Shouldn't the title of this article read "One day, we'll look back and thank Jim Flaherty for handing over all of Canada's resources to foreigners cheap?"

Note the sarcasm ... finally had the chance to listen to the Potash interview. Well done with the Vale example / comments. Future generations have a right to know who stripped away their rights as workers, who stole their family inheritances / Canadian standard of living.

Today my better half is bowing to his foreign masters at Votorantim Cimentos - St. Mary's Cement. To further illustrate your comments - the Bowmanville strike lasted 20 weeks. Longest strike ever for that company. The Contract only went through at 58% ... pension goes bye, bye and into in the hands of Manulie 2012. VC is worse than Vale - PRIVATE. So nice to see that government stimulus money finally being spent on VC St. Mary's Cement. Very comforting after losing so much in that contract and knowing the labour and labour relations boards don't work for workers.
Thank you Ontario provincial government for reducing the limestone extraction tax. Limestone is a limited resource ... I am sure the residents of Flamborough / Burlington appreciate that one too.
www.stopthequarry.ca
Thank you to the arse wipes at the competition bureau in 2001 who gave St. Mary's to foreigners cheap and at the same time gave the Brazilians the much wanted access to USA markets ... Apparently ON has a tax treaty with Brazil ...
All the decent tech jobs at the Bowmanville plant disappeared around 2005 and were sent to Brazil. Upper management are not Cdns.


Gerdau - Cambridge 2009 - longest strike ever in that City.

As Canadians adapt to Brazilian customs and learn Portuguese, it can be a family affair in a Braziliant Ford Focus.

http://apps.detnews.com/apps/multimedia/player/index.php?id=1189

Income Trust money allowed us to survive that strike. Needless to say Flaherty and Oda did not show up at the picket line. Or the mobile ones. Although the guys didn't bother to call when covering Whitby.
http://www.windsorstar.com/business/Cement+company+picketed+Bowmanville+strikers/3218090/story.html

Flaherty's legacy will be remembered and celebrated in Portuguese during the new Canadian Mardi Gras.

Kid Leduc said...

Methinks the Globe knows a real story that it's not telling. But ya it is amazing that Canadian's national newspaper is willing to toady-up for the Finance Minister. The column is just barely a notch above the style at the old Pravda.

I figure this long piece on Flaherty is positioning that we're going to see more of. Harper is sinking deeper into his own self-made mess, and the powers that be are putting the running colors on an old horse.

By the way, I thought Friday was the day to do news on the recent national party polls. What's happening with that?

Bruce Benson said...

Brent, well said and so true. The Corporate Elite have the muzzle firmly attached to Freedom of the Press. Boy the Press and Politicians piss me off.

Anonymous said...

Ha! Harper's under attack just as his sail is down.

I'm going really enjoy seeing his one-man ship slide below the water into the obscurity of history.

See http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/waiting-out-the-harper-experiment/article1687507/

Anonymous said...

Wow, 'probably'? As usual, you hit nail squarely on head. These clowns have an astounding financial literacy deficit that is beyond belief. Perhaps FlawDoofus was thinking of them when he indicated Canadians need assistance in acquiring said literacy...

It's a QUANTIFIABLE event, are you people stupid or dishonest?

m.

Anonymous said...

I'm glad I don't get the Globe at the cottage an article like that would have turned my stomach.

Neville

Dr Mike said...

We always knew that Jim Flaherty was a "man of the people".

We just never thought those people were Dom D`Alessandro , Mike Sabia & Paul Desmarais.

Little people be damned.

Dr Mike Popovich

Anonymous said...

The Globe is not alone. It just happens to be in the back of a pack of dimwits.

The amazing thing is how slow Canadian journalists have been to suss out Harper and his jerks. For Flaherty, the Globe is trying to make him look good even though he's been just another clown on a string.

This morning Surette from Halifax says:

"One thing the vast majority of us are distinctly not waiting for is for the Harper government to actually improve anything, especially not to advance the cause of a properly functioning democracy. On the contrary, the drift is ominous: towards a tyrannical control from the Prime Minister’s Office aimed at dismantling large parts of the Canadian state, punishing anyone who questions its aims, manipulating information, and turning the society into an alloy of right-wing religion and big money."
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Opinion/1198982.html

C'mon Ralph, you shudda reported all this in 2007 when Flaherty under orders from Harper diddled and blackened information with the help of the NDP.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous

Re your points on St. Mary's et al. You are exactly right. Flaherty has set the stage for foreign takeovers. But we all know that the Conservatives are liars with very little competence. What I want to know is why to the Liberals remain silent and ineffective on these matters?

Railhound

Anonymous said...

The Globe is just repeating the same errors that Terry Corcoran into hot water over at the National Post. The blog enrty here re the BoC and Corcoran Catfight details that issue very well.

It's the poor standard of "journalism" that now prevails thoughout the media.

Here we have the worst Finance Minister of all time being praised in the Globe and Mail.

Talk about journalistic malpractice.

Railhound