Parliament works better when it’s closed

It is a mistake for Canadians to think that Parliament works better when it’s open. Sadly, it actually works better when it’s closed.

You see, when Parliament is closed it is prevented from passing legislation, as it has done in the past, that is passed on complete falsehoods. Take the income trust tax for example. This is a policy that caused Canadians to lose $35 billion of their life savings on the policy pretense that income trusts cause tax leakage. The FACT is that income trusts DO NOT CAUSE tax leakage. Income trusts are no more responsible for causing tax leakage, than every pension fund in the country is responsible for causing tax leakage, or that RRSPs cause tax leakage or that Jim Flaherty’s law firm causes tax leakage. Those are the facts of the situation. So why were income trusts singled-out for this 31.5% tax, and only publicly traded income trusts targeted for this tax? For the simple fact that the users of capital in this country (i.e. corporations and their CEOs) did not want to live by the rules of the income trust model which was favoured by the providers of capital in this country (namely average Canadians citizens saving and investing for retirement).

So the capital users went crying to the politicians in Ottawa, who are ostensibly the representatives of the people, and concocted a bespoke tax policy that allowed these Corporate CEOs to carry on with their abusive corporate practices and screw the average Canadian saving for retirement and employ the services of the elected politicians to tax investment options away from the average Canadian based on premises that were and are completely false.

This is the irrefutable REALITY of how Parliament works when it is in session. It passes laws that are regressive to the vast majority of Canadians based on completely false premises, in order to appease and kowtow to a very small and select powerful group of people in this country. How contemptible is that?

As such, Parliament works better when it’s closed. Parliamentarians themselves, through their very actions of the past are the ones who have proven that to be the case. Parliamentarians like Jack Layton of the NDP. What hard proof did he and his party have that income trusts cause tax leakage? None whatsoever. Did he even ask for proof? No. For Jack Layton to assume that income trust cause tax leakage, would also mean that Jack Layton would be equally willing to assume that RRSPs themselves cause tax leakage. Would that mean that Jack Layton would support a 31.5% tax on all RRSPs? I doubt it, and yet such a policy of taxing RRSPs at 31.5% makes as much sense as taxing income trusts at 31.5%.

That’s the problem with Canada’s Parliament. It is completely lacking in any degree of intellectual of factual rigour in how it conducts its affairs. Instead Canada’s Parliament operates on assumptions. Assumptions that are often begun by paid lobbyists who spend their entire lives lobbying MPs for legislation that favours their own self interests. Blind assumptions like the one made by the NDP party and virtually every MP In Parliament that income trusts cause tax leakage. That is simply not the case, as income trusts DO NOT cause tax leakage. Instead Parliament operates on assumptions. And you know what they say about people who assume. People who assume, make asses of u and me.

Much like the politicians in the US Congress made the blind assumption that Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction as their false assumption on which to base their disastrous invasion of Iraq, so too Canadians politicians in Parliament made the blind assumption that income trusts cause tax leakage as their false assumption on which to base their disastrous taxation of income trusts, that has led to the lose of an essential investment choice for the 75% of Canadians without pensions ( at a time when Canadians are more concerned about their retirements than ever) the loss of $35 billion of Canadians retirement savings, the wholesale foreign takeover of over $100 billion in policy related takeovers, causing the massive loss of REAL tax revenue to all Canadian taxpayers that will ultimately reach $7.5 billion PER ANNUM in lost tax revenue.

If this is the quality of the decision making that goes on when Parliament is in session, it is impossible to argue that Parliament works better when it’s closed. Closing Parliament is much like taking away the keys from some drunk driver before he gets into his car and takes the life of some innocent pedestrian or fellow motorist, which is analogous to what Jack Layton and the NDP did when they voted for the income trust tax along with every one of the sycophant Conservative MPs in Parliament. That House of ill repute. Please keep this institution closed until such time as it demonstrated it has sobered up to the point where legislation no longer gets passed that is based on complete falsehoods. The way to demonstrate its new sober attitude to governing the country, would be to demand that Jim Flaherty expose the falsehoods about tax leakage that are hidden by his 18 pages of blacked out documents. The 18 pages of blacked out documents that Jack Layton and the NDP party along with every sycophant Conservative MP thought was proof of tax leakage, but which instead was proof of their utter incompetence and contempt for democracy.

Jack Layton thanks you for writing

Mr Layton:

When are you going to expose Harper's lies about tax leakage, that was his false justification for the income trust tax?

He only provided 18 pages of blacked out documents as his so called "proof" of tax leakage, just like he's trying to get away with on the Afghan detainee matter.

Are Afghan detainees more important to the NDP than Canadian seniors who lost $35 billion of their retirement savings for what may be NO GOOD REASON?

Why the double standard? Do you not want to be like Barack Obama who said he wants to be known as the Empirical President, a president whose decisions are based on facts and not just hollow dogma, like tax leakage with zero proof?

Please get us the facts upon which the NDP party supported Harper's income trust tax. Your party will be rewarded for asking. Punished in the polls for not.

It's your choice. Honesty in gov't or blacked out documents?

I await your response. OUR democracy turns on it.

Brent Fullard
President and CEO
Canadian Association of Income Trust Investors
www.caiti.info

647 505-2224 (cell)


On 12/18/09 12:15 PM, "LaytoJ@parl.gc.ca" wrote:

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> Office of Jack Layton, MP (Toronto-Danforth)
> Leader, Canada's New Democrats