Raise taxes to reduce inequality

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, October 17, 2011 at 9:32 AM - 19 Comments

Mike Moffatt argues we aren’t prepared to do what’s necessary to reduce inequality.

The obvious place to start would be to borrow solutions from countries where after-tax income inequality is relatively low. Three countries that consistently score well on income inequality measures are Denmark, Finland and Sweden. These three Nordic countries share very similar tax structures, featuring moderate-to-low marginal corporate tax rates, moderate-to-high income tax rates and very high value added sales tax rates (VATs, similar to Ontario’s HST). The average VAT in these three countries is 25 per cent, a rate nearly twice that of the average Canadian federal GST plus provincial sales tax or HST. A one percentage point increase in the HST alone would raise $5 billion to $6 billion per year for the federal government, so increases by a few percentage points could adequately fund programs designed to reduce inequality. No country on Earth has been able to find a way to fund the kind of social programs and redistribution needed for “reasonable” levels of inequality without VAT rates significantly higher than Ontario’s HST.

Greg Fingas objects.

A state of perfect disharmony

By Andrew Coyne - Thursday, September 29, 2011 at 4:30 PM - 8 Comments

So the harmonization comedy continues. Scant weeks after the people of British Columbia, in a magnificent fit of self-destructive fury, voted to unharmonize their provincial sales tax from the now-misnamed Harmonized Sales Tax, word came that talks between Ottawa and Quebec on a plan to compensate the province for harmonizing its own tax were at an impasse.

You could tell the talks were at an impasse because the two sides put out a press release announcing the talks were going swimmingly. “HST and QST harmonization,” it read: “Discussions proceeding normally.” And so they were, if by “normally” you mean sailing past the Sept. 15 deadline for an agreement to which the federal Conservatives had pledged themselves in the recent election campaign. The most they would say now is that they hoped to have a deal by the end of the month.

Mind you, it was always a mystery just what they had to talk about, the feds having already promised, publicly and often, to yield to Quebec’s demands. They’d even named the figure, $2.2 billion—by a remarkable coincidence, the very sum the Charest government had asked for at the start. What was there left to negotiate?

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Cutting the right taxes

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, September 23, 2011 at 11:00 AM - 61 Comments

Scott Clark and Peter DeVries propose a new tax plan to fix the government’s structural deficit.

First, the current plan has only slightly reduced the high effective marginal tax rates imbedded in the personal income tax structure, which seriously inhibit labor force participation. Without getting into detail, what is required is a lowering of the marginal tax rates. This could be expensive. Lowering all rates by 1 percentage point could cost $5 billion annually. Getting rid of all the special tax preferences introduced over the past five years would be a start.

Second, the government should restore the two points to the GST bringing back the $13 billion that was lost. This would more than pay for the cut in tax rates for all Canadians but would also allow a larger reduction in the corporate tax rate than is currently planned.

Right place, right time, right party

By Paul Wells - Friday, September 23, 2011 at 9:15 AM - 24 Comments

Right place, right time, right party

Stephen Harper sent his regrets and a note, which was read to the 300-odd revellers the other night at the Coast Edmonton Plaza Hotel. “Special greetings to Ted Byfield and Preston Manning, who have done so much to inspire, inform and lead the conservative movement in Canada,” the Prime Minister’s note said.

The occasion was a “victory celebration” for a defunct magazine that never made anyone rich. The magazine was Alberta Report. Well, sometimes it had other titles, but we’ll stick with that one. Its founder was Ted Byfield, an irascible right-wing coot—I do not believe his friends would disagree with that description—and a mentor to dozens of journalists who went on to other roles, including this magazine’s Ken Whyte, Mark Stevenson and Colby Cosh.

But as I’ve said, the Report shut down in 2003. So what’s to celebrate? Power. “The West Is In,” the party invitations read. The reference was to the Harper Conservatives’ majority government. The dinner’s souvenir program promised a “national gala to reunite the original authors of Harper’s historic victory.”

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In praise of VAT

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, September 16, 2011 at 2:32 PM - 27 Comments

Stephen Gordon tries to reconcile progressives with sales taxes.

Outside Canada, it is generally accepted that high VAT rates are an essential component of social policy: see the accompanying graph. Of the 21 OECD countries that spend more on social programs than does Canada, 19 have higher VAT rates. There are no rich countries that have pulled off the trick of sustaining high levels of social spending with low VAT rates … One of the more convenient features of the GST/HST is that it has already set up the infrastructure for transferring income to low-income households. The GST/HST tax credit can be used as a basis for an even more ambitious system of transfers at almost no additional administrative cost. All that is required is the political will to use it.

The demise of the HST (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, August 29, 2011 at 2:21 PM - 11 Comments

Frances Woolley considers the merits of stealth taxation.

The federal GST or goods and services tax is a case in point. The GST is a value added tax. It replaced a particularly dysfunctional (small base, high rate) manufacturer’s sales tax. Almost all economists considered the GST superior to the old sales tax. However it was extremely unpopular among the general public. The reason is simple: the old manufacturer’s sales tax was invisible, so people couldn’t tell how much they were gaining when it was eliminated. The GST was visible, so people could see the increase in their tax liabilities. As a result, they over-estimated the net impact of the GST on their tax liabilities. (To be fair, people weren’t entirely stupid: manufacturers were slow to pass on the tax savings created by the elimination of the manufacturer’s sales tax.)

Rosen et al argue that “Most economists view the visibility of the GST [goods and services tax] as one of its beneficial characteristics.”  The political opposition to the GST and now the HST (harmonized sales tax) should make “most economists” reconsider this view.

You are invited to a tax party

By Nancy Macdonald - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 10:45 AM - 40 Comments

Glenn Baglo/PNG

This month, for the first time in B.C. history, every British Columbian has the chance to play finance minister for a day. HST referendum ballots have landed in mailboxes across the province. But not everyone is thrilled with the opportunity. Navigating the complexities of tax policy isn’t easy, and even the referendum question is causing confusion. Voting “no” means you want to retain the HST, which strikes many as counterintuitive. A “yes” vote, meanwhile, is a vote against the new tax. The last poll showed that almost 20 per cent of respondents misunderstood. And that was just the question.

Both sides of the debate—former premier Bill Vander Zalm’s Fight HST campaign, and the government and its allies, calling themselves the Smart Tax Alliance—are fighting hard, deploying TV, print, radio and Internet ads, automated “robo” calls, lawn signs and spin doctors galore in a last-ditch effort to pick up votes. Yet some British Columbians, grown weary of the din, are turning to more trusted sources: their friends, family and colleagues.

Vancouver writer Christine McLaren was so thoroughly confused, she decided to gather her informed friends for a party to try to make sense of the referendum. Despite closely tracking the debate, the self-described news junkie had “no idea” how to vote. A lot of her friends, including her housemates, a shiatsu therapist, and a yoga and meditation teacher, were equally stumped. So the trio invited pals from all walks of life—engineering, finance, the arts, a mix of low- and middle-income families—to their purple house in Strathcona, a gentrifying neighbourhood bordering the Downtown Eastside. By hashing out the arguments, and “picking each’s other’s brains,” McLaren hoped to help make the decision a little less, er, “taxing.”

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The structural deficit that dare not speak its name

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 10:18 AM - 31 Comments

Stephen Gordon sees yesterday’s budget as an implicit acknowledgement of a structural deficit.

Many commentators have suggested that the structural deficit was created by increased spending, so spending cuts are the appropriate remedy. I don’t see how this hypothesis fits the data, and the fact that the necessary spending cuts have yet to be specified suggests to me that there’s no expensive new program that can be blamed for the structural component of the deficit.

It’s much easier to tell a story (here and here) in which the cuts to the GST are the cause of the federal structural deficit.

What Harper has planned for Ottawa

By Paul Wells - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 6:40 PM - 215 Comments

Frank Gunn/CP

What if this election were about something big? What if it were a fundamental debate about the role of government in a modern society? Maybe it is and you just have to scratch a bit to find it.

With their backs to the wall, Michael Ignatieff’s stalled Liberals have finally begun broadcasting the sort of attack ads that always feature in the later stages of Liberal campaigns. “Stephen Harper is demanding more time in power,” this year’s ads say, over pictures of the Conservative leader in an unphotogenic moment of repose. “Can you trust him with your health care?”

Well, why wouldn’t you? In reply, the Liberal ad rehashes some scare quotes from 2000 and 2001, when Harper was beating the right-wing drums at the National Citizens’ Coalition. Then the breathless voice-over adds: “Last year, Harper’s finance minister called for massive cuts to increases in health spending. Now Harper has a risky plan to cut $11 billion from government spending. Where would Harper’s cuts leave your family’s health?”

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The Bull Meter: Michael Ignatieff on the Conservatives’ economic record

By Julia Belluz - Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 3:06 PM - 37 Comments

"[The Conservatives] spent all kinds of money to put us into a deficit before the recession… We found ourselves confronting a record deficit."

- Michael Ignatieff
March 28, 2011

In 2009, the federal government’s balance sheet went from showing a surplus of $9.597 billion to a deficit of $5.755 billion. Last year, the deficit was a record $55.6 billion. But how did we get here?

According to a November 2008 assessment by Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page, the Tories’ decision to cut the GST, coupled with an increase in government spending caused the deficit—not the global economic crisis. By February 2011, the budget watchdog’s position was much the same: the deficit is structural, caused by policy not recession. The PBO also said that contrary to the federal government’s budget forecast of a surplus for 2015-16, a deficit of $10 billion would remain by mid-decade. “Sustained fiscal actions,” Page reported, are needed to “avoid excessive debt-to-GDP accumulation.”

We called Stephen Gordon, an economist at Laval University, to get his take. “Yes, the Conservatives caused the structural deficit,” he said, adding that cutting the GST was a mistake. “They basically blew $10 to $12 billion, and that’s the PBO’s estimate for the structural deficit in 2015. But at the time [when GST was cut in 2006 and 2008], we were taking those $10 to $15 billion surpluses for granted.”

Heard something that doesn’t sound quite right? Send quotes from the campaign trail to macbullmeter@gmail.com and we’ll tell you just how much bull they contain.

Sources:

Bank of Canada

Public Accounts of Canada 2010

Parliamentary Budget Office Economic and Fiscal Assessment November 2008

House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance

Worthwhile Canadian Initiative Blog

Australia's haves and have-nots

By Josh Dehaas - Tuesday, March 15, 2011 at 10:06 AM - 0 Comments

New South Wales (NSW), with a third of Australia’s population and its largest financial centre, Sydney, was once the economic engine of the country. But next year, the state will receive $1 billion more in funding as part of national equalization—increasingly, NSW is a “have-not” state.

The rapid rise of resource revenues in the frontier territories, along with slower growth in the country’s southeast, have contributed to the imbalance. It’s a familiar story for Canadians: Ontario, with 38 per cent of the population and the country’s main financial centre, tipped into “have-not” status in late 2008. And much like some politicians in Western Canada, leaders in Queensland and Western Australia aren’t pleased about the increasing burden of NSW and Victoria (the latter, with a quarter of the country’s population, has long been the country’s greatest recipient).

Upon hearing his state will only receive 93 cents of every GST dollar it collects next year, Queensland Treasurer Andrew Fraser accused the southeast of “burglary.” Western Australia, meanwhile, is getting only 72 cents per dollar, because it produces 36 per cent of the nation’s exports and is booming. It can afford to share, said the Commonwealth Grants Commission in its annual report.

Popular economics

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, February 1, 2011 at 10:54 AM - 32 Comments

Mike Moffatt considers the corporate tax rate debate, while Stephen Gordon considers the GST.

It’s not clear to me that the Conservatives owe their 2006 victory to the GST cut, and governments in Quebec and Nova Scotia recently increased the TVQ/HST without – as far as I can tell – a great amount of fuss. Voters are adults, and can generally be counted on to make adult decisions if offered adult choices.

And even if voters do have an irrational aversion to the GST, I don’t see why I should be internalising this tendency. When politicians choose to sacrifice evidence-based policy in favour of electoral gain, they should be called on it.

In the comment thread under Gordon’s post, Ian Brodie, Stephen Harper’s former chief of staff, turns up to defend the GST cut.

What a New Democrat wants

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, January 13, 2011 at 5:09 PM - 39 Comments

David Akin reviews Jack Layton’s demands.

“New Democrats are fighting to make sure stronger public pensions are part of the next budget. We’re looking for practical steps here. Like a modest increase in the guaranteed Canada Pension Plan. And an increase to the GIS, so seniors can afford the everyday basics they need … New Democrats have called on Mr. Harper work with us to drop the 5% federal sales tax on your home heating. We’d also bring back the eco-renovation tax credit — so families can make their homes more efficient to cut their bills even further.”

The economist

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, January 13, 2011 at 3:50 PM - 72 Comments

Stephen Harper, September 2008. “My own belief is if we were going to have some kind of big crash or recession, we probably would have had it by now.”

Stephen Harper, October 2008. “I know economists will say well, we could run a small deficit but the problem is that once you cross that line as we see in the United States, nothing stops deficits from getting larger and larger and spiralling out of control.”

Stephen Harper, October 2008. “We’ll never go back into deficit.”

Stephen Harper, December 2008. “The truth is, I’ve never seen such uncertainty in terms of looking forward to the future … Obviously, we’re going to have to run a deficit.”

Stephen Harper, February 2009. “Of course there’s all kinds of risks of inefficient, expanded government policies that will continue into the future. I’m not suggesting there aren’t long-term risks. But I was taught early in economics classes, the famous economist John Maynard Keynes said that, ‘At times like this, we remember that in the long run, we’re all dead.’ So right now, we worry about the short term. We are worried about the short term, and we’ve got to get things right now.”

Ian Brodie, former chief of staff to Stephen Harper, March 2009. “Despite economic evidence to the contrary, in my view the GST cut worked … It worked in the sense that by the end of the ’05-’06 campaign, voters identified the Conservative party as the party of lower taxes. It worked in the sense that it helped us to win.”

The Canadian Association for Business Economists, August 2010.  The Canadian Association for Business Economics says a poll suggests 74 per cent of its members think it’s bad policy to replace the obligatory long census with a voluntary survey. Seventy-one per cent anticipate the quality of data obtained from a voluntary survey will be poorer than that collected from the compulsory census. And 76 per cent believe the change will negatively affect the analysis done by their group or organization.

Stephen Harper, yesterday. “On the other hand, when things change as rapidly as they do, you can’t be locked in to the same answer in every situation. Obviously, the last two years required us, my judgment as an economist, required us to on a temporary basis spend an enormous amount of money and run a significant deficit. I think we were in the unusual situation where that’s actually the ideal economic policy.”

'A price solution for an income problem'

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 26, 2010 at 1:08 PM - 0 Comments

Stephen Gordon questions the NDP call for a tax break on home-heating costs.

If we’re concerned about the income problems associated with home heating costs – the affordability issue – the proper remedy is an income solution: give more money to low-income households. If we’re concerned about whatever price problems there may be, the proper remedy involves increasing the cost of GHG-emitting home heating. And if we’re concerned with both, we can implement both remedies simultaneously: increase the cost of home heating and give more money to low-income households.

The Commons: Sound economic theory

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 20, 2010 at 8:01 PM - 0 Comments

The Scene. Michael Ignatieff stood to relate the concerns of another individual he’d recently met—the latest in his 33-million-part series on the lives of average Canadians. “Mr. Speaker, on Monday, at Our Lady of Lourdes High School in Guelph, a young student named Diane asked me a question,” he recalled.

Across the way, various Conservatives groaned. But the Liberal leader would not be troubling anyone on the government side to respond to Diane’s question. In fact, he had already answered for them.

“‘We’re caring for my grandmother at home. If elected, what would you do to help people for caring for the sick and elderly at home?’” Mr. Ignatieff reported this young lady as having wondered. “I replied to Diane, ‘Our answer is the family care plan.’ The Conservatives’ answer is, ‘Use your vacation time.’”

No doubt the Conservatives appreciated that Mr. Ignatieff had saved them the trouble of telling Diane that much themselves.

“The question is this,” Mr. Ignatieff continued, now seemingly speaking for himself. “How can the Prime Minister justify tax breaks for profitable corporations instead of helping families like Diane’s?” Continue…

Where ideas are considered dangerous

By Andrew Coyne - Thursday, October 7, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Ryan Remiorz/CP

“Mr. Layton charged the Conservatives’ economic plan was following “some rigid ideology,” as opposed to dealing with the reality of relatively high unemploy­ment.”—Financial Post, Sept. 16

“Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe also took aim at Harper over the gun registry, accusing him of adopting an “ideological” stance to please his political base in the West.”—Montreal Gazette, Sept. 21

“First and foremost, we need to take ourselves seriously again, to pursue an active foreign policy informed by facts and compassion, rather than by ideology.”—Paul Heinbecker, Globe and Mail, Sept. 24

There is no more serious accusation in Canadian politics than that of having an ideology. Politicians would confess to killing their own grandmother rather than own up to such a thing: what the dictionary defines as “a body of ideas.” Possession of cocaine is a charge you can probably survive. But possession of ideas is career-ending.

Rather, practical men that they are, politicians prefer to say they live in the real world, guided, as Ambassador Heinbecker says, by facts, not ideology. “I’m not ideological,” many will say. “I just do what works.”

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Being right v. Sounding right

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 at 1:17 PM - 0 Comments

Stephen Gordon sees what’s going on here.

A disconcerting trend is establishing itself in Canadian politics. Political parties are showing essentially no interest in the merits of a policy proposal beyond its potential as an element of some shrewd communications strategy … All three parties have now decided that the path to power is paved with stupidity. We won’t have good government, but at least we’ll see cunningly-crafted communications strategies.

Idea alert

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, October 4, 2010 at 11:35 AM - 0 Comments

Jack Layton pitches tax relief.

The federal NDP wants Ottawa to scrap the federal portion of sales taxes on home heating: The 5 percentage points levied by the Goods and Services Tax or the federal portion of the Harmonized Sales Tax applied in many provinces. The NDP estimates it would cost Ottawa $700-million in foregone revenue.

Mr. Layton’s proposal also twists the political knife, though, blaming the rise in home heating costs on the introduction of the HST in Ontario and B.C. The new tax combines the GST and provincial sales tax but also means a sales tax hike for consumers because it is charged on many products which didn’t incur PST before.

People like it

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, August 27, 2010 at 11:46 AM - 0 Comments

From the Globe’s epic profile of Jim Flaherty, the Finance Minister explains why cutting the GST was a good idea.

Flaherty is unrepentant about the GST cut. Over the G20 weekend, he says, he had a spirited debate with his British counterpart over the issue of consumption taxes. George Osborne, a Conservative, had just laid out plans to raise Britain’s version of the GST as part of the new government’s program to narrow a massive budget deficit. “I know the argument about consumption taxes,” says Flaherty. But what economists fail to take into account, he says, is the psychological value in cutting a highly visible levy. “There is something else that goes on too, and that is, middle-class people don’t believe that governments reduce their taxes,” Flaherty says. “But if you do it on a consumption tax, people see it. That, in part, restores faith in government. Taxes don’t always go up, they can go down, and they see it every time they buy something.”

Most exclusive PM interview ever

By Scott Feschuk - Wednesday, March 24, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 9 Comments

Photographs by Adrian Wyld/CP (Left) , J.P. Moczulski/ Reuters (Right)

In a Maclean’s exclusive, Prime Minister Stephen Harper sits down for an intimate conversation with…the Stephen Harper from five years ago.

Stephen Harper 2005: Let me just say: congratulations, Prime Minister.
Stephen Harper 2010: I couldn’t have done it without you.

SH 2005: This feels like one of those old Freedom 55 commercials where you get to meet your future self. Give me a piece of advice that will save me some grief.
SH 2010: Remember this sentence: O Canada is fine the way it is.

SH 2005: Let’s get down to business. Tell me everything. I assume we’ve completely remade Canada by now.
SH 2010: Yep. [Pause.] Well, pretty much, anyway. [Pause.] Um, the GST used to be seven per cent and now it is five per cent.

SH 2005: That’s our only achievement?
SH 2010: Of course not. Mike Duffy is now a senator.

SH 2005: So it’s all taking some time. We’re still moving ahead with big change, right?
SH 2010: Absolutely. If you look at the portions of the latest Throne Speech dedicated to livestock, uranium and maritime traffic, you’ll see that we—

SH 2005: Maritime traffic? I though we believed a government with a million priorities was a government with no priorities.
SH 2010: You’re overreacting. There was a lot of good stuff in that speech. We vowed to eliminate unnecessary appointments, close unfair tax loopholes and get rid of red tape.

SH 2005: So we used our Throne Speech to tell Canadians that the person running the country for the past four years has been doing a lousy job?
SH 2010: I’m not sure you’ve got the right attitude. My psychic hairstylist says that…

[An awkward silence falls.]

SH 2005: I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.
SH 2010: That’s probably for the best.

SH 2005: I have to ask: on a personal level, what’s it like being PM?
SH 2010: It’s great. Remember what we used to say—that it’s better to be respected as a leader than to be loved? Well, it turns out it’s even better to be feared. Plus, there are perks. When I was at the Olympics, I got to sit next to Wayne Gretzky.

SH 2005: That’s terrific! Hey, how’d our book on hockey turn out?

[Silence. In the distance, a coyote howls.]

SH 2005: I don’t have much time. I need to get back and promise Canadians that ministers in a Conservative government will never succumb to the culture of arrogance and entitlement that—

[sound of glass shattering down the hall, followed by screaming].

What the heck was that?

SH 2010: Helena Guergis. Her tea must have been served lukewarm.

SH 2005: I’ve got to be honest: this is a little disheartening. I guess I’ll have to content myself with knowing that we’ve got a Conservative government focused on ordinary Canadians. No longer will the Prime Minister indulge and cater to the elites.
SH 2010: Exactly. I only played them one Beatles song on the piano. But I actually know two.

SH 2005: How do the books look?
SH 2010: The economy took a bit of a turn. Bad timing for us, because we used up the surplus trying to win over voters. So now we’ve got—

SH 2005: I’m just going to take a drink of water. Keep talking.
SH 2010: Now we’ve got a deficit of $56 billion.

[Water sprays from SH 2005’s mouth.]

SH 2005: So—quick checklist. Did we create those child care spaces I’m promising?
SH 2010: No.

SH 2005: Reduce health care wait times?
SH 2010: Oh dear heavens, no.

SH 2005: Create an effective plan to combat climate change?
SH 2010: Well, we’ve been meaning to get—

SH 2005: Nah, I’m just messing with you. I was never serious about that.

[They share a laugh.]

SH 2005: But we killed the gun registry and got Senate reform done, right?
SH 2010: Listen—governing is tricky. It’s hard to do things like…anything.

SH 2005: So we’ve been PM for four years and our primary accomplishment is…what? Still being PM after four years?
SH 2010: Don’t knock it—it worked for Chrétien.

SH 2005: At least tell me we’ve gotten tough on violent crime.
SH 2010: We’re on it. We’ve introduced the bills—lots of them—but we keep running into hurdles.

SH 2005: The opposition finds a way to stop them?
SH 2010: Actually, I prorogued Parliament, killing the bills and forcing us to start over. [Pause.] Twice.

SH 2005: One final question—if I punch you in the face, will I feel it?

Idea alert

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, March 3, 2010 at 1:04 PM - 23 Comments

Economist Stephen Gordon wishes for a staggered reincrease of the GST, then opens the floor to his wonkish readership. A learned discussion of reforming the tax code ensues.

Idea alert

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 at 2:45 PM - 40 Comments

The RCMP report tabled yesterday by Colin Kenny and a delegation of Liberal senators is here. A few of its notable recommendations are as follows.

We recommend that the federal government move quickly to establish a civilian review authority to deal openly with serious grievances concerning the conduct of the RCMP; that this body possess full audit authority, power to subpoena, and have full access to RCMP records except for Cabinet confidences; and that it also have the power to initiate legal proceedings and recommend redress in cases in which it concludes that RCMP officers have broken the law…

RCMP marked vehicles and uniformed officers should be equipped with miniature cameras that would enhance transparency for both officers and citizens from false accusations of improper behaviour…

We recommend that the federal government provide funding to increase RCMP personnel by 5,000 (or more) regular members in approximately equal increments over the next decade…

Senator Kenny told the Sun the government could pay for various improvements with an increase to the GST.

Gerard Kennedy Maverick Watch

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, January 29, 2010 at 1:07 PM - 25 Comments

The Liberal MP dares champion the notions of “discussion” and “consideration” and even “debate.”

Leading economists, former Finance officials and Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page have all said sales tax increases are required to balance the books. It has not gone unnoticed among some Liberals that in Britain, the Conservative opposition is leading the polls and winning praise for “authenticity” after proposing specific deficit-fighting measures that include some tax increases. ”I think we do need to talk about it,” Mr. Kennedy said yesterday in an interview with The Globe and Mail.