Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

Reasonable Question of the Day

by Aaron Wherry on Wednesday, January 28, 2009 4:28pm - 30 Comments

The NDP’s Megan Leslie questions the government’s home reno policy.

Building a deck is a nice thing, but what about Canada’s homeless who cannot front the money for the tax credit?

Or, for that matter, a house upon which to add that deck

Tags: budget09, Megan Leslie

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Stephen

Clearly, “most vulnerable” means “most vulnerable to running out of seating room for your backyard BBQ.”
madeyoulook

Not reasonable at all.

Answer: Megan, if you want people to spend this non-existent money to get the economy moving again., the multipliers aren’t so favourable on the next bottle of booze and pack of smokes and ill-defined quantity of ill-defined mind-altering substances — heaven’s sake that last one rarely triggers GST or income tax, either…

(This is not in any way to be taken as an endorsement of the drunken sailors muttering “them filthy Liberals forced us to do this, the evil seductresses…”)

http://macleans.ca kc

I would say all of those products are definitely stimuli by definition. Don’t liquor stores and purveyors of smokes need stimulus too? [ rhetorical] And i think the group in question are defined as “homeless”, not shiftless, idle , worthless trash. Not to put any words in yr mouth.

Mike T.

Indeed, money spent on and by the poor is the most likely to be spent directly into the national and local economy.

Critical Reasoning

Not to mention the underground economy.

http://macleans.ca kc

Tax credits for drug dealers? I wouldn’t be that surprised to see it in this budget somewhere!
Critical Reasoning

Heh – a tax credit for the one sector of the economy that doesn’t pay taxes.

I’m in favour of subsidized housing for drug dealers, as well as subsidized meals, subsidized clothing, subsidized security, subsidized counselling, and subsidized rehabilitation, all within the context of our subsidized penal system.

Cameron MacLeod

I suppose we can’t give them support because they’ll spend the money on beer and popcorn? :-)
Matt

evil ROMANIAN seductress

http://carnewsandviews.com jwl

Why is this a reasonable question? Did Megan, or Aaron for that matter, look at the budget. Billions of $$$ were pledged for social housing even though health/welfare is a prov matter.
catherine

Leslie doesn’t understand job creation/maintenance. The reno credit is not so much meant to help the people getting the renos, but to stimulate them to do it now so that some others can keep their jobs.
catherine

Actually, this seems to be a common theme with the NDP. They don’t understand job creation. They are forever attacking the people who employ people. What does the NDP have against jobs?
whyshouldIsellyourwheat

Shouldn’t the title be “Unreasonable question of the day”?

Almost all the labour and materials used in home renovations are sourced in Canada. The mulitplier effect of home renovations is large.
Critical Reasoning

Wherry, thanks for calling attention to this appallingly stupid question by Megan Leslie.

Alex

Nothing like riding Alexa’s coat tails to get elected. If she keeps this up, I hope my fellow Haligonians will think twice next time they’re at the polls. She needs to get a clue, quickly.

Canadians Against Rhetorical Questions

More questions? You ask an awful lot of questions for a guy who is supposed to be explaining to his readers wtf is going on in Parliament. Are you an airhead? Because you sound like one.

Of Canada’s 23 wealthiest ridings, based on home value, the Conservatives hold precisely zero seats. They are mostly Liberal with a few NDP ridings.

Point being that the NDP is the party of wealthy, old, unionized public servants and wealthy “old economy” workers. The Conservative Party, and only the Conservative Party, has moral authority on matters pertaining to the poor, not Buzz Hargrove’s NDP, not Tom D’Aquino’s Liberals. They only care about Big Union and Big Corporations, both of whom were banned from bankrolling elections by Stephen Harper.

(Ken Whyte: I’m f*cking invoicing Maclean’s for making me explain this to your readers, it’s time to stop this factually inaccurate portrayal of the NDP as a party that cares about and appeals to the poor. They don’t, and neither does our trendy, trendy friend Wherry.)

Megan Leslie asks an eminently reasonable question, too bad it is painfully obvious attempt by a limousine liberal to use the poor as props with which to bludgeon her opponents. The Conservatives are the People’s Party, the Liberals are the Corporation’s party, and the NDP are the Big Union party, and anyone who says different is quantifiably wrong.

Wherry, there are limits to how badly you can suck at politics, and you are fast approaching them. Listen to me now, believe me when you are on the pogey line (get a Conservative to explain this term to you).

Mike T.

Some painful irony, here…
Patrick

While you go on with your broad, baseless, and utterly ridiculous rant, might I ask, for whom is the Green party?

oh and “The conservatives are the People’s party” (chuckle)

Lord Bob

Judging by their seat count, the Green Party is for nobody!

http://andythesaint.wordpress.com/ andythesaint

Here’s how it can help the homeless: maybe some of those homeless people are tradespeople who used to do things like build decks or other renovation projects, but could no longer afford their homes due to lack of demand for their services. Now maybe there will be some demand. I know it’s a radical idea to actually EMPLOY people as means of giving them money, rather than simply giving them money from the government, but it might be just crazy enough to work.

BoomNoZoom

True Story: I’m walking to my car in a Shoppers drugmart parking lot with my two young daughters when I spot an extremely unkempt, disheveled and wild-eyed paragon of the homeless crossing the lot and running toward us. I quickly order my daughters inside, get in and start the car. The esteemed gentleman in question arrives and starts slamming his fist againt my window. I proceed to drive away, slowly and with due regard for this prince of a fellow’s safety, as he amuses himself by kicking my side panels. As I drive away I look in the mirror and see this downtrodden member of our city’s brightest lights jumping up and down wildly waving his arms in rage as he realized he missed his shakedown opportunity. Now the point::At the time I was congratulating myself on righteously protecting my young girls from what I thought was a possible threat from an obvioulsy unstable and perhaps dangerous miscreant. However, having read andythesaint’s post and the NDP’s position on this, I now realize that I should have remained to negotiate a fee for expanding my backyard deck as he was apparently just one of the legions of homeless tradespersons roaming the parking lots of our fair city looking for meaningful work. I stand chastened and determined to advocate for funds so that we may assist these noble craftspersons in their worthy endeavors.

http://deleted Sandi

Well, we need our roof shingled this year and our chimney pointed – we’ll be creating work for a shingler(s) and a chimney pointer (or whatever it’s called). They’ll probably go for lunch, pay their own bills and keep the economy going and paying taxes to help the poor.
Sisyphus

Some points :-

Megan Leslie lives in a grubby down-at-the-heels part of downtown Halifax.
She has a law degree and has always worked for little or nothing on behalf of organizations trying to help with poverty issues in Halifax.
She won the NDP nomination with a speech that turned aside the organization favourite nominee.
For her introduction to the House she wore her only suit … that she had bought at a second-hand store.
She does not advertise any of the above.

She’s a class act …. which , of course , means she’ll be sneered at by the chuckie group here.

And what she is saying is that the wonderful 15 % tax credit will be of use to owners of single family homes that will be doing renos that they were probably going to be doing anyway. Laid-off auto workers or low wage renters need not apply.

Critical Reasoning

Seriously, she sounds like a wonderful person. We need more like her in government.

People were mocking the question, not the speaker. The question, as it is worded, is ridiculous. Unless you are saying that her definition of “homeless“ includes renters and condo dwellers.
catherine

She sounds like a wonderful person but she is simply mouthing typical NDP divisive rantings, not to mention, the nonsensical nature of her question. It is not an either or. The point to the home reno is to get people to do their home renos during the next year because increasing unemployment quickly takes the economy down. It is to get those people who were thinking of renovating but hesitating because of the economic uncertainty, to take the leap and stop hesitating. That’s the whole point of stimulus.

The NDP is giving the impression that they would rather no one get any stimulus unless it is done how the NDP wants.

And, by the way, some of the “low wage renters” you refer to are relying on the money they get from painting, carpentry work, cashiering at a hardware store, or even sod-laying (one of the more bizarre parts of this plan). This is a plan to try to save those jobs.
LeslieE

Thank you for letting some of the group know a little about the person they are flaming. Geez!

Slightly off topic…. If you give money to the lower-waged people it will most likely be spent here and relatively quickly. Give it to the middle and upper-middle class and it is more liable to be put into the tax-free account or on a trip south.

Mike T.

That’s actually not off topic, it’s a very important fact.

KW

WRONG!

When the credit was announced, my wife called me at the office to say “Maybe now it’s a good time to…and…and…can you think of anything else?”

For single-income, multiple child families (who pay a LOT of taxes) purchasing decisions are often made at the margains…

KW

The NDP et al are correct…

Give the middle-class nothing. Nothing.

No Olympics to be proud of…

No parks…

No art galleries…

No festivals…

No high-speed rail…

Nothing.

All opportunities to give out government money should go directly to the most needy only.

If you’re middle-class, why should the government go out of their way to help you in any way at all?
Matt

I was going to knock down and rebuild my presently extremely-crappy garage. Then bad times hit. Not so sure I can afford it anymore. Now there’s mad tax creditz to do so. Some guy is going to get paid because Harper’s budget is trying to get me to do what I was going to put off because the economy sucks. Getting me to do that helps the economy. The guy who is going to get paid because the budget incentivizes me to keep spending is likely an NDP voter, and likely is better able to eat as a result. I really don’t see the problem here.