Flanagan on HarperCons: It doesn't have to be true, just plausible...or an outright fabrication (like tax leakage)

PMO denies aide's claims about possible defections
No truth to Jason Kenney office's report that 3 Liberals were interested in joining Tories, spokesman says

October 7 2009
Susan Delacourt
Toronto Star

OTTAWA–The Prime Minister's Office sought Tuesday to distance itself from reports coming from Immigration Minister Jason Kenney's office about possible defections of Liberal MPs to the Conservatives.

Dimitri Soudas, a PMO spokesperson, said there was no truth to claims made to the Star by Kenney's communications director, Alykhan Velshi, about three Liberal MPs interested in crossing the floor to the Conservatives.

Outside the main entrance to the Parliament buildings, Soudas called out to a Star reporter that Velshi's information was "bulls---."

He then in a conversation with the reporter could not explain why the communications director to the immigration minister would tell the Star about the potential floor-crossers if they didn't exist.

Nor could Soudas explain why he was "outing" Velshi on Tuesday afternoon as the source of the tip to the Star. Soudas went on to explain that only the PMO knows certain information and Velshi wouldn't have had the kind of facts the Star was seeking.

Kenney's office was involved when Wajid Khan, a former Liberal MP from Mississauga, crossed the floor to the Conservatives in 2007.

Velshi, when asked on Monday whether there was any truth to speculation about Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla (Brampton-Springdale) crossing the floor to the Conservatives, said that there had been talks with three Liberal MPs, but Dhalla was not among them. Velshi made the remarks in the Commons foyer, with other reporters nearby.

According to Velshi, the three Liberal MPs had made the approach to the Conservatives, but he did not know their names. He volunteered, however, that Dhalla wouldn't be a good catch because "she's going to lose" to the Tories in the next election. Velshi said he was sure of his information when asked whether it was solid enough to be published.

The Prime Minister's Office, though, perhaps interested in cultivating peace with the Liberals, was quick to reassure reporters Tuesday that Conservatives were not in talks with any Liberal MPs about floor-crossing. In a break from normal practice, the PMO also told reporters the name of the government aide who spoke to the Star.

Steve: Take your Harper Sales Tax.....and shove it

HST: a hot-button issue for the Conservatives?
Last Updated: Tuesday, October 6, 2009 | 8:55 PM ET
By Leslie MacKinnon, CBC News

With harmonized taxes, prices for dry cleaning, utilities, airfares and more will rise by eight per cent in Ontario and seven per cent in B.C.With harmonized taxes, prices for dry cleaning, utilities, airfares and more will rise by eight per cent in Ontario and seven per cent in B.C. (Steven Senne/Associated Press)

The prime minister has made it clear he believes there are no good taxes. But the federal government has had its hand in a substantial tax increase that's coming to residents of Ontario and B.C.

After July 1, federal and provincial consumption taxes will be combined into one harmonized tax, or HST, in these provinces, meaning some services that previously were only taxed with GST will now be hit with PST, too.

Prices for haircuts, dry cleaning, utilities, airfares and much, much more will rise by eight per cent in Ontario and seven per cent in B.C. In Ontario, a $20,000 home renovation bill that used to cost $1,000 extra in GST will rise to $2,600 in HST after Canada Day.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Tuesday during question period that his government believes that sales taxes should come down, which is why the GST was loweredPrime Minister Stephen Harper said Tuesday during question period that his government believes that sales taxes should come down, which is why the GST was lowered (Canadian Press)

Many people in B.C. are already outraged by the planned imposition of the HST, largely because Premier Gordon Campbell just won his third majority by promising, among other things, no new taxes. In Ontario, many people seem completely unaware of the substantial tax hike that's going to hit them come July 1.

The federal government is ardently hoping the backlash from the HST will be directed toward the two provincial governments. Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Tuesday during question period that his government believes that sales taxes should come down, which is why the GST was lowered.

But the fact is the federal government is aiding and abetting the provinces. It plans to pay B.C. and Ontario almost $6 billion to ease the transition to the HST. The offer of significant cash is open to any other province. (Three Atlantic provinces have had the HST since 1997, and Alberta has no PST).

And why are some governments, and many economists, for that matter, so keen on the HST? The case is made that the HST is good for the economy since businesses, which currently can't claim tax credits for the PST paid on their purchases, will be able to under the new system. The money they save will be passed on to the consumer in lower prices, so everybody wins, the argument goes.

But the reality is that consumers end up paying more. Yes, prices will come down, but not enough to offset the increase consumers will pay in new tax. TD Bank Financial Group estimates that the HST will inflate prices for consumers by an average 0.7 per cent. That's not a monumental amount, but bound to hurt some people in an era of low wage increases and tighter household budgets.

The question is, how long can the Conservatives avoid taking any blame for the tax bite that's coming to about half the population of the country? One test will be the day the government has to introduce the federal enabling legislation that will allow the HST to go ahead.

The NDP is actively campaigning against the HST and will not support the government on this one. The Bloc Québécois's vote is harder to call, and as for the Liberals, well, they're in a quandary. They've vowed not to support this government, yet they've guaranteed Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty that they will not impede the HST for Ontario.

Stay tuned, because this could be the vote that has the explosive potential to bring down the government and force an election.

And one other thing: If you live in Ontario or B.C., and if you foresee an expensive house renovation, a brake job on your car, or any other pricey service — maybe a big legal bill — make the payment before July 1.

Bravo Jack Layton

Layton was dead wrong on the income trust tax and blindly bought Harper’s line about tax leakage. Glad to see that understanding the effects of HST is within Layton’s intellectual grasp:

Layton says Harmonized Sales Tax is wrong, Harper would put 8 cents on dollar

(CP) – 10 hours ago

THUNDER BAY, Ont. — NDP Leader Jack Layton is taking his campaign for Employment Insurance reform to northwestern Ontario.
Layton was in Thunder Bay on a tour of the region on Saturday to meet with local workers and ask them what they need from the Employment Insurance system.
At a press conference he also discussed the possibility of a harmonized sales tax, and Layton said Prime Minister Stephen Harper would put eight more cents on the dollar.
Layton asked why the legislation has to go through the House of Commons in order for the tax to be passed if the HST is a provincial decision.
Layton said that the tax would not bring more jobs to Thunder Bay, but will do the opposite and reduce jobs because people will have less money.

Copyright © 2009 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Some of Harper’s more blatant policy contradictions

Harper’s HST totally contradicts Harper’s Home Renovation Tax Credit:

Harper’s Home Renovation Tax Credit of 15% on selected purchases during a 12 month period ending January 31, 2010 is intended to stimulate the economy or in Flaherty’s words: “These measures are important to sustaining Canada’s economic recovery....the Home Renovation Tax Credit is encouraging millions of Canadians to invest in the long-term value of their homes, and has increased the demand for labour, building materials and other goods and services—creating jobs and stimulating our economy. It is important that these measures be implemented quickly.” whereas Harper’s HST will tax EVERYTHING in Ontario in PERPETUITY at the rate of 13%, which can only mean that Harper’s HST is counter-stimulative, if it is argued that Harper’s Home Renovation Tax Credit is stimulative. One foot on the gas pedal and the other on the brake pedal, courtesy of our totally contradictory PM, the Economist in training.

Harper’s HST totally contradicts Harper’s Income Trust Tax:

It is falsely argued by Stephen Harper that income trust are “bad” on the alleged premise that they shift tax burden from corporations to individuals (the so called tax leakage argument which is a falsehood), whereas Harper’s HST is “good” because it is specifically designed to shift tax burden from corporations to individuals. Complete hypocrisy, courtesy of our totally contradictory PM, the Economist in training.

Harper’s Tax Free Savings Account totally contradicts Harper’s non-acknowledgement of taxes paid by RRSPs:

Income trusts cause tax leakage ONLY when the government conveniently leaves out the taxes paid on the 38% of income trusts held in RRSPs using the argument that “today’s social programs can’t be funded with tomorrow’s tax dollars”, whereas two months later Harper introduces the Tax Free Savings Account, that will see no tax dollars ever made available to fund social programs, either today, tomorrow or ever, the TSFA is completely tax free. Courtesy of our totally contradictory PM.

Harper’s bailout of ABCP totally contradicts his wanton destruction of income trusts:

Harper’s income trust tax caused Canadian and foreign investors to lose $35 billion of their retirement savings because of a premeditated act of Stephen Harper that was based on his false argument of tax leakage. The income trust market was a $200 billion market dominated by average everyday investors, but apparently that was “okay”, whereas Harper thought it was essential that his government bail out the institutional and corporate investors who dominated the much smaller ABCP market, with the argument that doing so was essential to preserving Canada’s capital markets. ABCP was a product that was destined to fail from the outset, as it was nothing more than an elaborate cheque kiting scheme that attempted to turn fixed rate long term “assets” into floating rate short term “paper”. Bottom line: Harper bails out highly questionable investment schemes, while actively killing legitimate ones? This courtesy of our totally contradictory PM, the Economist in training.

Harper’s real record of hollowing out:

Harper hails the return of Tim Horton’s to Canada as some form of validation for his corporate tax cut policies, but fails to acknowledge that this corporate maneuver does not result in any change in the ownership of Tim Horton’s or the hiring of a single new employee, whereas Harper’s income trust tax was the event that precipitated a wholesale takeover of Canadians companies and the displacement of their Canadian investor/owners, because Harper’s income trust tax favoured foreign owners to Canadians owners, which explains why Abu Dhabi acquired Prime West Energy or why Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka Shing acquired TranAlta Power Income Fund. Why was there no “photo op” as there was for the Tim Horton’s non event, when BCE’s prospective new owners, Providence Capital and Madison Dearborn of the US, insisted that BCE fire 2500 knowledge workers, before proceeding to turn Canada’s largest telecommunications company into a junk bond basket case. Perhaps people making donuts at Tim Horton’s are Harpers idea of Canada’s new knowledge workers? Courtesy of our totally contradictory PM.

This list of Harper’s blatant policy contradictions is by no means exhaustive, but represents those contradictions of Harper’s that I find most blatant and irksome. By all means, let me know about those policy contradictions that define Stephen Harper that most offend you.

Could Harper have been any more emphatic in promulgating his lies?

Any more emphatic?... Youtube evidence

Any more devastating?... Youtube evidence

Any more incompetent?

One-time income trust tax advocate Eric Reguly calls IT fallout a Disaster for Flaherty: This Youtube video is no longer available, courtesy of CTVGlobeMedia’s desire to rewrite history by expunging the record, instead you will have to settle for this video, about Albertan’s rage against Harper’s incompetence and lies:

Youtube evidence

Like Harper’s rapacious trust tax, HST is another opportunity squandered by the federal Liberals. Is anybody home?

Harper so far unscathed by HST blowback

Federal support key to tax harmonization that has been poorly received by Canadians
Steven Chase

Ottawa — From Friday's Globe and Mail Thursday, Oct. 01, 2009 06:43PM EDT

Stephen Harper's fingerprints are all over changes that will mean increased sales taxes on about one in five consumer purchases in British Columbia and Ontario starting next July.

But while voter anger over the impact of the harmonized sales tax has scorched B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell – and singed Ontario counterpart Dalton McGuinty – Mr. Harper's federal Conservatives have so far escaped political blowback.

It's a remarkable feat given that the Prime Minister's government counselled B.C. and Ontario to embrace harmonization and then bankrolled its adoption. Ottawa is paying B.C. $1.6-billion and Ontario $4.3-billion in compensation to ease the transition.

Economists say Ottawa's cash was crucial to persuading Mr. Campbell and Mr. McGuinty to adopt the HST, which merges the federal GST and provincial sales tax into a single levy that applies to the same goods and services. The compensation helps provinces cope with an expected revenue dip in the short term under the new regime.

“I doubt harmonization would have proceeded at this time without the federal support,” said Toronto Dominion Bank chief economist Don Drummond, who helped persuade Ontario to make the shift.

The HST's economic appeal is that it is a tax break for business and improves the investing climate for provinces that adopt it. What's politically perilous is that it shifts some sales-tax burden to consumers from business, and, in the short term at least, hikes costs for consumers. (Competitive pressure is expected to force business to pass on much of the tax savings over time.)

Public opinion is sour on the HST. A Nanos Research poll earlier this year found just 23 per cent of Ontarians back it.

But only the premiers are paying a political price – Mr. Campbell apparently far more so than Mr. McGuinty. By mid-September, only four months after winning a third-straight election, the B.C. Liberal government's public support had fallen to record lows, behind the provincial NDP, in the polls.

Few voters have yet made the connection that the Harper Tories played so pivotal a role in the HST shift, pollsters say, because it fell to Mr. Campbell and Mr. McGuinty to announce the changes.

Not surprisingly, the Conservatives are keeping a low profile as the backlash rages. They dismiss criticism by pointing out that it was the provinces that ultimately decided to adopt the HST.

“Our place is merely to facilitate decisions that have already been made by provincial legislatures,” federal Industry Minister Tony Clement recently told the Commons.

Tories defend the $6.2-billion compensation, saying it's not inducement but fair treatment: giving Ontario and B.C. money for switching, just as Ottawa funded a 1997 move to the HST in Atlantic Canada.

Still, it's an awkward issue for the Tories, who pride themselves on cutting federal consumption taxes – the GST – by 2 points.

Pollster Nik Nanos said that, while the federal Tories have avoided the backlash so far, voter anger will grow as the July 1, 2010, deadline for the HST nears.

“Issues that touch people's lives tend to drive voting behaviour, and the Conservative policy, for a lay person, is not consistent with what they would expect the Conservative government to do.”

The controversy would appear to be tailor-made for the Opposition Liberals. One former Tory MP speculated privately that the party would be campaigning hard against the HST if it was sitting on opposition benches.

But Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has found himself frustrated in efforts to attack the Tories and has pulled his punches. A campaign against the HST would hurt Mr. Ignatieff's Liberal brethren in the McGuinty government, so the federal leader has limited himself to criticizing the timing of the move, while assuring Ontario that a Liberal government would still pay the province compensation.

However, the federal NDP, with no realistic chance of attaining power, has led opposition to the HST in Parliament, hoping to score points against the Tories, a party that it competes head to head against in many B.C. ridings.

Mr. Nanos predicts the pressure will grow on Mr. Ignatieff to break with Mr. McGuinty and oppose the HST, especially if the Liberal Leader's political fortunes don't improve. “At a certain point, your political survival instinct has to kick in,” he said. “I wouldn't underestimate the power of this as a political issue, especially when people are still jittery about the economic recovery.”

Both Ignatieff and Goodale remind Canadians about Harper's income trust fraud, In Parliament today

Mr. Michael Ignatieff (Leader of the Opposition, Lib.) Mr. Speaker, I rise in this House today to announce formally that the official opposition has lost confidence in the government. This is a serious step and we owe an explanation both to this House and to the Canadian people of our grounds for doing so.

Nous avons perdu confiance dans ce gouvernement et nous nous mettons debout pour protéger les gens qui ont été abandonnés par ce gouvernement. Je vais essayer de donner des raisons concrètes pour lesquelles nous allons retirer la confiance de ce gouvernement.

First of all, the Conservatives have lost control of the public finances of our country. A year ago they were at the edge of deficit; by February, they were at a deficit of $32-billion; suddenly, four or five weeks later, it is at $50-billion; and at the end of the summer they announced the deficit was at $56-billion.

Who in the House can actually believe this figure will not climb somewhere near $60-billion by Christmas? This is a terrible record of failure and someone must stand up in the House and call it what it is: abject failure on the public finance management of this country.

They have no plan to get us out and all Canadians must understand that this deficit is going to hang around the necks of Canadians like a stone. It jeopardizes our capacity to provide adequate health care for Canadians in the future. It jeopardizes our capacity to help seniors and guarantee a secure retirement for our fellow citizens. It jeopardizes our capacity to help the unemployed. That is the first reason Liberals cannot have confidence in the government.

The second reason is a question we have to ask ourselves. We have a $56-billion deficit and what do we get for it? Do we have some grand new project that renews the infrastructure of our country, that makes us stronger, that makes us more united? What we have instead is a reward program for the Conservative Party of Canada. Conservative ridings have benefited disproportionately from this stimulus expenditure and we have the figures to prove it.

Then there is the issue of actually getting the money out the door. We have seen the press releases, we have heard the announcement that 90 per cent has been committed but when we actually look at the stimulus funding that we can see on the ground, 12 per cent has gone out the door. I was at a soy bean field in Burlington. The Conservatives wish us to believe that it is a car park. I am here to tell everyone it is still a soy bean field.

There is worse than that. The government has used taxpayers' money and spent six times more promoting its own inaction plan than it has to promote the public health of Canadians and warn them about the dangers of H1N1.

That brings me to the third issue, which is the protection of the public health of Canadians. With H1N1, every Canadian can see on television that in other countries people are already being vaccinated. We are still waiting for a plan. We are still waiting for the vaccine. It is the government's responsibility and it has not stepped up.

If people were to go to aboriginal communities and talk to the chiefs, as I did yesterday, they listen with disbelief as the health minister tells them 90 per cent of them are ready for the H1N1 epidemic. They know perfectly well their nursing stations are not ready. What did they get from the government? They got body bags.

We are not finished. Across the country there are cancer and heart patients waiting for nuclear medicine and diagnostics because twice on the government's watch over four years it has failed to supply an adequate amount of nuclear isotopes for the Canadian medical profession. This record of failure is just not good enough.

As if that was not enough, when the Canadian health system is under constant relentless attack from our ideological friends south of the border, what do we hear from the other side of the House? There is total deafening silence. That is public health.

Let us look at what Conservatives have done in respect of Canadian technologies and jobs. The government has been in office for nearly four years and the litany of great Canadian companies that have gone under, been bought and traded away is getting longer and longer: Nortel, Inco, Falconbridge, Stelco, Alcan. There has been no attempt to defend Canadian jobs and Canadian technologies.

We are now in the absurd situation of having a technological hub, which is a world leader in the Kitchener–Waterloo area, sitting there watching while Canadian patents and technologies developed at home are sold to their competitors. How are we to create the jobs of tomorrow unless we have a government that stands up for Canadian technology today?

We welcome public investment but we want transparent public reviews so Canadian workers and employers can know exactly what undertakings foreign companies give when they come to this country, so that we actually do have net benefit for this country.

Let me move to another area where the government has failed Canadians. It has failed to protect Canadians abroad. If one is named Saad Mohammed or Abdul Razik, it turns out that their passport is not worth what they think it is worth. They cannot count on the protection of the Canadian government.

This side of the House says very clearly so all Canadians can understand, a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.

Speaking of Canada overseas, the government, over four long years, has steadily diminished Canada's influence and weight overseas. Who in the world can take us seriously as a partner in climate change? We were missing in action at Bali, and we will be missing in action in Copenhagen if the government survives.

Who will actually listen to Canada on the climate change issue? We have had three ministers of the environment, three plans and no action. We have lost all credibility on this issue in the international area. Who would vote for Canada?

Who would vote for Canada in the Security Council? We have held a seat there almost every decade since the founding of the institution? Who would vote for Canada in the Security Council when the Prime Minister of Canada cannot even bother to show up at the UN General Assembly?

Who in China or India will take seriously Canadian entrepreneurship, Canadian technology, Canadian products if the Prime Minister of Canada cannot even bother to show up to lead trade missions to open those markets to our Canadian entrepreneurs?

These are the kinds of failings that have made us, week after week, month after month, not just over the last year, over four long years come to the conclusion that we cannot continue to support the government.

Is this a pattern of incompetence or is this a pattern of malice? It is a little of both but there is something else going on that needs to be named by its proper name. There is a deeper design here, a design to permanently weaken the capacity of the federal Government of Canada to help Canadians.

There is, on the opposite side of the House, what could be called the starve-the-beast ideology. We know where that ideology comes from but it is not suited to Canada. It will weaken and eventually it could change Canada beyond recognition.

This party stands against that ideology all the way down. We stand against it because we believe profoundly that if this ideology prevails in this country it will permanently weaken the tissues that bind our society together, the health care system of which we are so proud, the care for the aged which distinguishes us as a civilized society, and the capacity of our society to provide security in retirement.

The government works on one plan and one plan only, starve the beast, lower expectations of government so far until Canadians cease to have any expectations of the federal government whatsoever. This is an unworthy way to govern this country, and we stand against it.

Les Canadiens ne cherchent pas un gouvernement centralisateur. La vision de ce parti à la Chambre, est celle d'un gouvernement de coopération, d'un gouvernement qui reflète les vraies valeurs des Canadiens comme l'entraide, non le chacun pour soi, et les valeurs de compassion et de compétence. Les Canadiens cherchent un gouvernement qui comprend les mots comme compromis, collaboration, compassion, respect. On attend en vain un gouvernement qui réponde à ces valeurs.

It is not just the Conservatives' ideology. It is not just their policies. It is the way they conduct politics in this country, what they have done to our politics. All adversaries are enemies. We cannot run Canada that way. This is not a country that we can divide in that way.

All adversaries are enemies, all methods are fair and all public money is available for partisan purposes. This is unworthy of the political traditions of this country.

When we have a little private moment among our friends at a fund raiser in Sault Ste. Marie the real story comes out which is that we want an election so that we can teach Canadians a lesson. That is not how I understand democracy. That is not how this party understands democracy.

We actually receive lessons from the public. We do not give them to the public. We do not use an election to teach left wing judges a lesson. We do not use elections to teach women who help other women through the cycle of domestic abuse a lesson. We want to use elections to bring Canadians together, to arouse them to a higher purpose.

This kind of approach to politics will weaken and divide our country. It goes beyond that. There is a cynicism about politics which they cultivate by the ways in which they neglect and ignore their own promises. There is an indifference to their own promises which is astounding.

The Prime Minister of Canada lives in an eternal present when he cannot remember what he promised to Canadians the day before and cannot remember what he will promise the day after. Income trusts, “I can't remember I ever made that promise”. Appointment of senators, “I can't remember I ever promised to reform the institution”, and no tax increases.

This party has discovered when we look carefully they have a payroll tax hidden in the wings of $13-billion and they do not have the guts to stand up and tell Canadians that is what they are doing.

Nous méritons mieux. Nous méritons un gouvernement de compassion, de créativité, de collaboration, un gouvernement qui unit les Canadiens, qui ne les divise pas, un gouvernement qui invite les Québécois, les francophones de tout le pays au pouvoir, un gouvernement qui va gouverner au lieu de diviser les Canadiens avec des jeux partisans.

We are looking for a government that believes in telling Canadians the truth, a government that believes that growth does not just happen with a market miracle. It requires the focused strategic guidance of a compassionate and creative government.

We believe we are looking for a government that actually thinks it can be leaders, not followers, in the great drama, the great challenge of global climate change. We are looking for a government that believes in the compassion and creativity of Canadians and wants to stand with them, not against them, and build a great country together. We do not have this government now and we cannot pretend any longer that we do.

Therefore we will stand up in the House and we will support the Canadians who have been abandoned by the government. We will do our job even if it does not.

Source: Hansard




Hon. Ralph Goodale (Wascana, Lib.): Madam Speaker, there are many reasons why we on this side of the House have lost confidence in the Conservative government. ...

For my part, I want to focus specifically on the economy, on the government's ongoing economic incompetence and why it simply cannot be trusted. On the Conservative government's watch, nearly half a million full-time Canadian jobs have disappeared. Now, this country is on its way to a multi-year, multi-billion dollar string of Conservative deficits, the biggest in Canadian history. It all goes to questions of competence and trust or the lack thereof.

The Conservatives brought Canada into deficit quite unnecessarily not because of any recession, but before any recession began. When Liberals turned over the reigns of power in February 2006, Canada's fiscal position was the best since Confederation and at the very top of the G8 group of world-leading countries. Our economy had thrived through a decade of balanced budgets. More than 3.5 million net new jobs had been created.

Transfer payments to provinces for health care and other social programs were at an all-time high. Debt and taxes were falling faster than ever before. In fact, the debt ratio had been more than cut in half. Our financial system was strong. Canada's annual surplus was running at about $13 billion per year and over five years federal financial flexibility was projected at close to $100 billion.

That is what the government had to work with starting in 2006. However, by last year, before the recession, most of that financial strength had been frittered away. It was gone because federal spending between 2006 and 2008 ballooned to unprecedented levels. It was up 18 per cent or, in other words, twice the rate of inflation before the recession. The tax base was eroded before the recession and all previous financial reserves, safeguards that had been put in the federal books to protect against those external nasty surprises that come along, had been eliminated before the recession.

The federal treasury stood exposed like a goalie with no pads, no stick, no face mask and no nothing, just praying that there would be no shots on goal. With the greatest of respect, that is not a competent way to proceed. It was reckless of the government to assume that the economic good times would just keep on rolling indefinitely.

The Conservatives would have been briefed by the Department of Finance that a downturn was virtually inevitable. The country had enjoyed a positive business cycle since 1993. That was the longest unbroken period of economic expansion since World War II. On the law of averages alone, it was due to come to an end. Finance officials would have warned to be prudent.

Furthermore, risks were obviously rising in the United States. The overspending American consumer had long been living beyond his or her means as reflected by massive household debt and massive U.S. budgetary and trade deficits. An unsustainable bubble was persisting in the American housing market, which if and when it collapsed, as it ultimately did, would spell big trouble for Canada.

In those circumstances, finance officials would have advised the government to avoid profligate spending, to safeguard the tax base and to maintain decent reserves in Canada's financial statements to serve as fiscal shock absorbers in the event of that inevitable downturn. However, the Conservatives chose to not follow that advice. In fact, they did the exact opposite. They overspent, eroded the tax base and eliminated the safeguards.

As a consequence, while times were still good last year, the federal government went into the hole by some $6 billion dollars and there was nothing left to cushion the blow when the recession subsequently came along. Another source of concern about competence and trust flows from the erratic explanations that Canadians have been given about the true state of our economy and Canada's balance sheet.

All through last fall we were told that a recession was unlikely. Indeed even to ask about the risk of recession was labelled by the Prime Minister as fear mongering or to use another one of his words, it was stupid. We were told that there would definitely be no deficit.

In November the government outlined a plan not for stimulus but for the opposite, fiscal restraint and it falsely claimed four more surplus budgets. However by January that storyline was abandoned. Instead Canada was now going to have two years of deficit financing, $34 billion this year and $30 billion next year. Through February, March and April the government insisted those numbers were absolutely accurate, all on track it claimed.

However by May the Conservatives' story had changed again. The government had miscalculated it seems by an astounding 48 per cent. The red ink this year would be at least $50 billion, not $34 billion and the deficit would last for four years, not just two.

This month it changed again, $50 billion became $56 billion and the time frame stretched from four years to six years. The cumulative damage will be something worse than $170 billion in new debt overall.

Constantly changing stories do not demonstrate competence or inspire trust. Therefore where does that leave us? It leaves us with a government that failed to see a recession was on its way, a government that ignored all of the warnings; a government that squandered Canada's fiscal security before there was a recession; a government that was wilfully blind, still denying the recession even after it arrived; a government that first tabled a wrong-headed austerity program, not a stimulus plan. It was going in exactly the wrong direction. When it finally and belatedly admitted that was a recession here and the stimulus plan was necessary, it was slow and clumsy in bringing it forward. Its so-called plan was completely suffocated by Conservative partisanship.

The Conservatives were preoccupied with photo opportunities, with advertising, with claiming credit but in fact, less than 20 per cent of what they promised has actually been delivered to date. Even their own favourite independent economists predict that by the end of this year they will not get that figure up to 30 per cent.

Meanwhile, 486,000 full time Canadian jobs have been destroyed on the government's watch. It promised 190,000. It lost 486,000. In the coming year the government is now promising to find magically, mystically 220,000 jobs. However the Royal bank, the TD Bank, the OECD and every other credible forecaster is predicting another 200,000 jobs will be lost. Unemployed will come near 10 per cent.

What does this wrong-headed government now propose? A new Conservative tax on jobs. It is going to increase payroll taxes in the form of higher employment insurance premiums and not just by a little bit. Higher Conservative EI premiums will become the government's fastest growing source of revenue. Its own numbers prove it. Over the next five years it will hoist its revenue from EI premiums by a whopping 60 per cent.

Just as Canadian employers will be struggling to generate new jobs the government is going to hit them and their employees with a new Conservative job killing payroll tax. Let us think about that. This is the government that said that it would never increase any taxes. The dishonesty is breathtaking.

Just as the Conservatives increased personal income tax rates and just as they imposed a brutal new tax on income trusts they have broken their word on taxes time and time again.

It is not just about taxes. It is about equalization, it is about floor crossers in the cabinet, it is about fixed election dates, it is about appointing more senators than any other Prime Minister in Canadian history, it is about demeaning women and minorities as unworthy left-wing fringe groups that need to be taught a lesson.

We have no confidence in the government.

Madam Speaker, the essence of the question was what has changed lately to result in this non-confidence motion. In 50 seconds I can hardly do that justice but let me mention a few things very quickly.

The government revealed that its deficit was not going to be $50 billion but was going to be $56 billion, it was going to last for six years and the total damage was going to be $170 billion.

The government also announced or revealed, maybe inadvertently, that it is going to be imposing a $13 billion employment insurance payroll tax increase which it had previously denied it was going to do.

We also received further and greater information about the failure in infrastructure delivery, where it is claiming 80 per cent or 90 per cent of projects actually delivered. When we talk to those very municipalities across the country, the vast majority of them say that the delivery rate is more like 12 per cent to 15 per cent.

That is what has changed, among a lot of other things.”

Source: Hansard