Beyond The Commons

 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

Taxes, both real and imaginary

by Aaron Wherry on Friday, December 17, 2010 5:05pm - 41 Comments

David Akin explores the tenuous reasoning behind the government’s latest radio spots.

They point to a report that came out of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. Part of that report considered the idea of extending the levy Canadian consumers now pay on blank digital media like CDs to MP3 players. Indeed, the Heritage Committee voted on March 16 in favour of extending that levy with all Conservative members of that committee voting against and the two Liberals, two Bloc Quebecois, and one NDP MP voting in favour. Notably, as an NDP staffer pointed out to me today, the chairman of the committee, Conservative Gary Schellenberger did not vote with his Conservative colleagues, choosing to break a 5-5 tie at the committee by voting with the opposition.

The Canadian Private Copying Collective has apparently advised that an extension of the law would involve a levy of between $5 and $25 per unit. The NDP’s Charlie Angus has pegged it at $5. The Bloc’s Carole Lavellee has said it would be between $2 and $25. The Liberals have proposed amendments to the government’s copyright legislation, while categorically rejecting the idea of extending the copyright levy to iPods.

Perhaps interestingly, while the Conservative government says it is resolutely opposed to a levy on iPods, I am told by Minister James Moore’s office that the government has no plans to remove the levy that is already applied to blank CDs and audio cassettes.

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  • Emily

    Imaginary tax, imaginary coalition, imaginary Cold War…..Cons are our Don Quixote party.

    • Jan

      I thought Nigel Wright might have put a stop to this nonsense. Seemingly not.

      • MostlyCivil

        Lies, damn lies, and Tony Clement.

  • LaxAtlDfwYow

    I can't help but think that if the U.S. DMCA had an iPod levy/tax thingee, the CPC would be pushing out ads criticising the LPC for not supporting Canadian artists.

    Rick Mercer has it right: it's a CPC drinking game. Every lie, take a shot.

    • Dave

      Ohmigod.

      Ohmigod.

      Ohmi- hic.

      Ohmigod. I am soooooooooooooo wasted!

  • TJCook

    "It doesn't have to be true. It just has to be plausible."

    – Tom Flanagan

    • Fido

      In his dreams, Julian Assange is already dead and Stephen Harper has relocated Parliament to Calgary. The Irish monetary crisis has been solved, thanks to that legendary pot o' gold–not at the end of a rainbow, mind you–granted by the IMF on condition that the Irish forgo kissing the Blarney Stone, and kiss neo-liberal ass instead.

  • tedbetts

    Culture of deceit.

    They really can't help themselves but lie at every turn, it's now so ingrained.

    • Mike T.

      It's a loyalty test. Whoever comes to the loudest defence of the dumbest policy and most obvious lie gets….I don't know.

      • http://intensedebate.com/people/Ottawa_Centrist Ottawa_Centrist

        Re-elected.

        • LaxAtlDfwYow

          …to keep their riding nomination.

          • http://twitter.com/jonatwitan @jonatwitan

            …a cookie.

          • NoNameCS

            … a song and dance from Steve.

          • Fido

            A photocopy of the PM sitting on a functioning Xerox.

          • YYZ

            A position in cabinet and more taxpayer money.

            (+ the much funnier Xerox thing)

      • Amateur Hour

        Pants afire?

  • tobyornotoby

    Other fear of taxes campaigns that might help the Conservatives hold on:

    The tax on pickup trucks
    The tax on doughnuts
    The tax on right wing "institutes"
    The tax on anti-abortion newsletters
    The tax on Grecian Formula (for men)
    The tax on Viagra

  • Curt

    How long did it take for the Liberals, NDP ,and the Bloc to deny they wanted to impose this tax?
    Since they voted for it in Committee they must believe in it.

    • Emily

      But they didn't…see, you have to pay attention.

  • Willie

    Speaking of where my tax money goes – it's not enough the CBC gets a billion a year – now you guys get a 11/2 million subsidy so I can read this foolishness? Explain that one Aaron. Honestly Wherry – folks like you sucking on the public teat, just makes me as an average guy trying to survive weary indeed!

    • Fido

      When is the last time you focused on a point beyond your fingertips, Willie? I think the feds are wasting tax dollars providing services to anyone that gives us "Willies".

    • Dave

      And what pray tell do YOU do Willie? Farmer? Try $5 billion a year in subsidies. Construction? Try $10 billion in infrastructure programs. Manufacturing, scientist, business person, you name it I'll find you a federal subsidy. I have no doubt that you too are on public teat

  • chet

    "Indeed, the Heritage Committee voted on March 16 in favour of extending that levy with all Conservative members of that committee voting against and the two Liberals, two Bloc Quebecois, and one NDP MP voting in favour.'

    The left votes in favour of it, and the CPC opposes,

    but the left is in shock that the CPC asks the public to hold them to account.

    The "coalition" will have to wear this.

    Protestations from far left partisan bloggers at Macleans notwithstanding.

    • Matlock

      So, Conservative MP Gary Schellenberger is now a leftist liberal?

      Tell that to anyone from Perth-Wellington, and they'd laugh in your face.

      Seriously chet, you're worse than the KCNA. I'm surprised you haven't referred to the Liberals as 'imperialist dogs' yet… or Harper as 'Dear Leader'.

  • chet

    And so if the CPC doesn't seek to remove all other similar levies,

    even though they are opposed to the IPOD levy,

    That's to be somehow taken as a support for the IPOD levy?

    How utterly dishonest a suggestion.

    And how terribly rich that the commenters here suggest it's the CPC that's being dishonest, as opposed to the leftist apologists twisting in gymnastic contortions to try to show the CPC is in support of something they clearly aren't.

    • Fido

      I think we need a Chet levy. Every time Chet posts a comment, local school boards get a grant to encourage responsible citizenship among the student population. That way, some day, Canada might get a REAL government.

      • Mike T.

        Ain't no tax on stupid – it's too regressive.

        • A_logician

          There is a tax on the stupid. It's called the state-run lottery.

  • Emily

    The Liberal Party does not support the iPod levy. It is not sustainable in a world of changing technology, and is unpopular with consumers. Canadians are already using multipurpose media devices to listen to music, like Blackberries, iPhones, iPads and computer livestreaming, on which the levy would not apply.” Marc Garneau
    http://davidakin.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2010…

    • Fido

      Emily, stop defending the indefensible because you toe a party line– please. Hear me out. Changing technology and copyright do not occupy the same thought space. Was the printing press a death knell to creative writers? Did Gutenberg destroy bible sales? We live in an age of expanding information access and diminishing knowledge–a time of increased confidence in decreased ability. Ponder the quality of the greater preponderance of comments on this site. Where is the insight? Where is the hope for the future? Where is the least indicator of even marginal hope for human survival beyond the next decade–if this is an indicator of the quality of human thought?

      Yes, naturally, it's "politics" — yet it is much more than politics. Some ideas are so hard to grasp. They tickle the edges of human awareness, sometimes provoking violent responses, even when violence is only a plea for relief from pain.

      Imagine "going to hell in a hand-basket" with neighbors who obsess over the basket's weave. (I left this part in because it reminds me of rehab).

      Oh, Heck–nice to vent when only the words stare back at you.

      • brooster2

        "Ponder the quality of the greater preponderance of comments on this site. Where is the insight? Where is the hope for the future?"

        Gone to the dogs, evidently.

        • Fido

          To the CATS, certainly. Even in its absence, the feline menace threatens the acquiescence of humor.

      • Emily

        Fido…I'm not a Liberal, so I'm not towing any 'party line'

        As to your statements on technology, I'm strictly a 21st century type and not into doom and gloom.

        There WERE no creative writers before printing presses, and our knowledge is now doubling every 1.5 years.

        If you expected great insights on this chatsite, you're looking in the wrong place….Macleans does news headlines, not visionary coverage of new thoughts and ideas….so nobody can comment on them. That doesn't mean they don't exist.

        We are living in the greatest, most exciting time in human history….literally everything is changing.

        Maybe you're just having a bad night.

        • Fido

          Of course the night is bad for me, Emily–too much evidence of dysfunction everywhere. Our heroes are beasts, our beasts are saviors gnawing the ropes of human slavery. Liars command the airwaves and dominate the press. Truth-tellers languish in prison cells. Producers are subjugated by usurers disguised as procurers. The press is a press-gang–recruited to fight against their neighbors to save their families who will perish first because they might know too much. There is a thin line separating truth and lies, a line erased in seconds by the tears of all the victims.

          And you fell asleep a while back and missed it–radios ceased to exist in 1951.

          [ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscienc... ]

          • Emily

            In other words, life is much like it's always been

  • brooster2

    "Perhaps interestingly, while the Conservative government says it is resolutely opposed to a levy on iPods, I am told by Minister James Moore’s office that the government has no plans to remove the levy that is already applied to blank CDs and audio cassettes"…

    from which it will continue to derive revenues at least equal the money it gets from the sales of 8 track tapes, 78 rpm vinyl records and 6 transistor radios.

    • Fido

      Are you not opposed to rentals disguised as purchases? What really BUGS me about some professed free-market advocates is their idea that "free" means "no cost to me, so I'm OK." Rentier.

    • Mike T.

      Radios have no storage capacity so aren't part of the levy.

      • brooster2

        I know. The intent of my comment was merely to point out the government can remain indifferent to levies on obsolete media because they no longer generate significant tax revenues. I could have added the oft-referenced buggy whip to the list of obsolete technologies on which a levy would be insignificant.

  • NOT a subscriber

    I have an idea… We stop giving 1.5 million in subsidies to THIS mag, and have THAT go to artists.

  • http://www.linkedin.com/companies/merger-law-associates-ltd. Julius C.

    The imaginary ones sound good…

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