Liberals should never have put HST on utilities

Remember how unpopular the HST was in British Columbia? The Liberal leader who legislated that — Gordon Campbell — was forced to step down. Well, even Campbell didn’t have the gall to put the HST on electricity and home heating.

Pay-as-you-go

Unfortunately for Ontarians, we had a pay-as-you-go conservative premier who loved gouging the little guy with regressive taxes, eco fees and endless electricity hikes: Dalton McGuinty.

While more than doubling the electricity rate — from 5¢ kWhr to 12¢ — he also jacked up electricity and home heating bills by 8% when he brought in his “job creating” HST.

Necessities of life

The HST is supposed to be excluded from necessities of life like food and prescription medicine. But apparently the “progressive” Ontario Liberal party believes that heating your home and using electricity are luxuries.

Real progressive

Thankfully Andrea Horwath is the only non-conservative leader running in this election. She’s the only one who will stop McGuinty’s injustice of gouging middle and low-income Ontarians with the HST on expensive utilities.

If you are a progressive voter, if you are a centrist voter, there is only one leader who has your interest in mind: Andrea Horwath.

Both Kathleen Wynne and Tim Hudak represent Ontario’s elite. Their top priority is borrowing billions every year to award the rich in corporate tax cuts — even though Canada has the lowest corporate tax rate among all major economies.

Wynne pension plan bad for low-income earners: Maclean’s

In 2011, the Ontario Liberals missed a majority by one seat. This year, Kathleen Wynne’s election strategy is to campaign from the left, squeeze out the NDP and win that coveted majority.

Wynne has done nothing progressive so far, except to deliver big promises on top of broken ones.

Far from progressive

But her actions have been far from progressive. Over the past 2 years, her party has made numerous cuts to the poor and disabled. Welfare and disability rates have also been eroded by inflation over the past 11-year Liberal reign.

On top of this, she is borrowing $2.4-billion every year to pay out to the rich in corporate tax cuts that don’t create jobs. What makes these tax cuts doubly unnecessary, is that Canada has the lowest corporate tax rate among all major economies.

Pension plan problems

Now it turns out Wynne’s disregard for low-income earners extends to her pension plan according to an economic analysis from Maclean's.

With a low income threshold of $3,500 — the amount of money a person makes a year before being required to pay into the fund — low-income retirees stand to lose $1 for every $2 they receive due to a reduction in the federal Guaranteed Income Supplement.

This means low-income earners will be paying more in payroll taxes than they get back in benefits. This would “ultimately mean that Ottawa gets to spend less on Ontario seniors, while the province’s poorest workers pay more.”

Actuary Fred Vettese, who did the analysis, said the threshold needs to be raised to $25,000 to eliminate this disparity.

Conclusion

Like Wynne's 1% hike to welfare and disability rates — which amounts to an actual cut because it’s lower than the inflation rate — the Liberal pension promise is far less progressive than it appears.

This is similar to the Chretien Liberal EI cuts which make many low-income earners pay for benefits they are not eligible to receive.

Liberal vote splitting fallacy

Liberal supporters use fear mongering to weasel left-leaning votes. They say vote Liberal or the neo-con party will win because of vote splitting. But that’s not how it works.

Certainly vote splitting is an issue. It’s what allows the conservative party to win an absolute majority on 40% of the vote instead of 50%. But only voting reform will end that nonsense.

The real danger is letting the conservatives win 40% of the vote. And the battleground for that vote is on the right-side of the political spectrum. The NDP has nothing to do with it.

Liberal/con vote splitting

The Liberal party straddles the center. So they need to reach leftwards and rightwards to win. It’s their job to split the moderate right-leaning vote to keep the con party away from majority territory.

Mike Harris and Stephen Harper won majorities by moving into Liberal territory and getting 40% or more of the vote. In short, they won because Liberal leaders failed.

For example, during 2011 federal election campaign, Michael Ignatieff handed Harper the economy on a silver platter — even though it was Liberal policies responsible for Canada’s relative resilience (“sound public finances and banking regulation” according to The Economist — plus stimulus spending.)

Liberal-NDP coalitions

In 1985 Ontario and 2008 federally, vote splitting between the Liberal and NDP parties didn’t allow the conservative parties to win a majority. In fact, it put the Liberals and NDP in a position to oust the conservatives by forming a coalition government — the norm in the developed world.

In 1985 that exactly what happened: the Peterson and Rae coalition.

In 2008, the NDP supported a coalition, but the Ignatieff Liberals turned it down because they thought they could do better by winning the next election. But obviously propping up the Harper Government did not work out well for them.

Conclusion

Vote splitting between the Liberals and NDP will not help the conservative party in any way, shape or form.

The real reason Liberals want NDP votes is so they can win a fake majority of their own.

But although the Chretien Liberals won the biggest chunk of NDP vote in history, they did not represent left-leaning voters. Instead they governed from the right, slashing spending and cutting corporate taxes.

A Liberal majority is clearly not in the interest of progressive voters whatever promises are being made. The Chretien Liberals made big promises too.

Wynne Liberal party: not progressive, not even liberal

The Ontario Liberals are trying to pawn themselves off as the “real” progressive party this election. Of course, so far they have yet to deliver on anything but empty and broken promises.

Track record

Back in 2013, they agreed to put NDP ideas into their budget like home care for seniors. But even though the budget was legislated, they still managed to abandon their promises.

This year instead of working with the NDP, they cut them out of the process. Instead of seeking their support, they ran attack ads. Apparently the Liberals need absolute power in order to bring progressive policies to Ontarians. Yeah right.

But let’s just look at their track record over the past couple of years and the truth of their promises.

Welfare and disability

Wynne’s 2014 budget boasts a 1% hike to social assistance and disability rates. But considering inflation this year is 1.5%, that means it’s an actual cut to rates.

In fact, over the past 11 years, both welfare and disability rates have been eroded by inflation under the “progressive” Liberals — and this is on top of Mike Harris’s draconian cuts.

Cuts, cuts, cuts

But that’s not all. Feeling the pinch over the last couple years, the Liberals have been making “shameful” cuts to social assistance and disability benefits.

They have cut diet allowances, the Community Start-Up and Maintenance Benefit, discretionary benefits, plus the children’s back-to-school and winter clothing allowance.

The CSMB paid for moving expenses, damage deposits, last-month’s rent and appliances (which could be applied for once every two years.) Discretionary benefits helped the poor with hearing aids, dentures, emergency food hampers, and bus tickets for job interviews.

Real progressive

While Wynne pretends to be progressive, Andrea promises real progressive policies. She will stop the Liberal cuts to the poor and disabled and index their rates to inflation (on average a 2% hike every year.)

Tax fairness

The Wynne budget promises to hike taxes for the rich: by a measely 1%! Put this in context of Mulroney’s income tax cuts for the rich: from 45% to 30%. And Mike Harris’s 30% income tax cut on top. Obviously, it’s a token measure.

What’s worse is that Wynne supports McGuinty’s $2.4-billion a year in corporate tax cuts for the rich — which we are borrowing to pay for! This is on top of the 50% corporate tax cuts that Paul Martin and Stephen Harper brought in.

In fact, according to KPMG, Canada has the lowest corporate tax rate among all major economies — and corporations are pocketing the money, not “creating jobs”.

Real tax fairness

While Wynne pretends to support tax fairness, Andrea promises real tax fairness. She will cancel the Liberals’ corporate tax cuts for the rich.

Andrea is also the one who demanded the tax hike on the rich in the 2011 budget.

Conclusion

Taking clothes off of the backs of poor children in the middle of winter while doling out big tax cuts for the rich is not progressive. It’s not even liberal.

The Liberal party does not need a majority to bring in progressive policies. In fact, they only steered left when they failed to win a majority in 2011 and needed NDP support to govern.

It’s obvious they are campaigning from the left — to win all the power — then return to governing from the right.

Their real right-of-center agenda — they’ve had all along — is to get back to the Drummond Report cuts the NDP so rudely interrupted them from.

Toronto Star pimps Liberals, ‘Goars’ NDP to weasel left vote

The Toronto Star’s flagrant promotion of the Ontario Liberal party — coupled with relentless and baseless smears against the NDP — puts them right in Sun News territory: agenda-driven faux journalism.

Day after day they pump out more propaganda that has all appearances of being crafted by the Liberal war room.

Lies, damn lies and Star columns

Rick Salutin preposterously claimed Andrea Horwath is “a right-wing populist; full out”: Rob Ford, Mitt Romney, Margaret Thatcher and Mike Harris all rolled into one.

Yeah right. And gravity causes people to float up into the sky. The CBC Vote Compass places Andrea distinctly to the left of Wynne in the left-wing of the economic spectrum. (It’s appalling such an absurd lie has to be debunked.)

Reg Martin Cohn and Tim Harper want the NDP to be punished to for “forcing the election” the Liberals and Cons were jockeying for. But the fact is Wynne’s government fell because of corruption, waste and broken promises. Instead of seeking support for her budget, she chose to run attack ads.

At the same time Liberals like Cohn and Harper want the NDP punished, they want voters to forgive the Liberals for trying to buy a majority government with $1.1-billion of taxpayer money last election (gas plant scandal.)

This kind of shameless, unflinching hypocrisy is what you expect to hear from the Stephen Harper Conservatives, certainly not a nationally-read newspaper.

Goar’s attack ad

Now Carol Goar tries to claim the NDP have abandoned the poor. Like the rest of the Star’s campaign agitprop, nothing could be further from the truth.

Andrea promises to end Liberal cuts to welfare and disability and index rates to inflation. Over the years, under the PC and Liberal governments, rates have been eroded by inflation.

The Liberal promise of a 1% hike — which Goar had the gall to actually boast about — is less than the inflation rate of 1.5%. That means it’s an actual cut to rates.

Cuts, more cuts and tax cuts

The Liberals have also “shamefully” cut a number of benefits for the poor and disabled: diet allowances, the Community Start-Up and Maintenance Benefit, discretionary benefits, plus the children’s back-to-school and winter clothing allowance.

The CSMB paid for moving expenses, damage deposits, last-month’s rent and appliances (which could be applied for once every two years.) Discretionary benefits helped people with hearing aids, dentures, emergency food hampers, and bus tickets for job interviews.

At the same time the Liberals were hurting the most vunerable members of society, they cut corporate taxes for the rich from 14% to 11.5% — or $2.4-billion a year. And this is on top of the Paul Martin and Stephen Harper corporate tax cuts of 50%.

All these tax cuts have failed to “create jobs” or benefit society in any way, shape or form. (Like that was the real purpose in the first place…)

Conclusion

No doubt the NDP has moved towards the center. But why not represent centrist and left-leaning voters the Liberal party has abandoned over the past 20 years?

Andrea has certainly not abandoned the poor, however. Far from it. She is the only one standing between the poor and disabled and more “shameful” Liberal cuts.

Hudak falsehood: 300,000 jobs killed by rising hydro rates

Tim Hudak’s “Million Jobs” revolution is founded on a lot of flaky ideology and misinformation.

Part is his claim that rising electricity rates in Ontario killed 300,000 manufacturing jobs.

He put out a chart that attempts to forge the correlation:

What economists say

But according to economists, it was actually the soaring loonie that caused the loss of the 300,000 jobs.

According to neo-con economist Stephen Gordon — who says the ‘Dutch Disease’ is not so bad because lost jobs were replaced in other sectors of the economy — the rising dollar killed the jobs:

The Canadian dollar depreciated by 20 per cent in 1993-2000, and it appreciated by 60 per cent during 2002-2008. The effect on manufacturing employment was consistent with what you would expect: an increase of about 300,000 jobs during the 1990s, and a decrease of a roughly similar amount in the 2000’s.

Here’s the chart with Gordon’s information:

Phony job creation

Hudak says Ontario has the highest electricity rate for industry in North America. Which isn’t actually true.

His plan is to create 40,000 jobs by lowing electricity rates for industry. Obviously this won’t work considering the overvalued dollar is what actually killed the jobs.

Privatization scheme

Hudak plans on selling off Hydro One and Ontario Power Generation. Like the 407 fiasco, Ontarians will likely end up getting gouged. Privatizing monopolies never ends well for consumers.

California is one example of an electricity privatization nightmare. There home users pay 23¢ kWhr (compared to our 12¢) while corporations are subsidized paying 9¢ (compared to our 10¢.)

Conclusion

If elected, Hudak will immediately hike residential rates 10% by cancelling the Ontario Clean Energy Benefit.

His plan to privatize Hydro One and Ontario Power Generation could send rates soaring. It’s highly unlikely average Ontarians will see their rates go down.

If Hudak subsidizes industry rates on the backs of residential users, this will cause personal rates to soar. But it certainly won’t create 40,000 jobs.

Who should voters really punish?

The Toronto Star is pimping the idea that the Ontario NDP should be punished for “forcing the election.”

This perspective is really a work of fiction when you look at the details.

Blame game

For one, Kathleen Wynne wasn’t exactly bending over backwards trying to get NDP support for her confidence bill (the 2014 budget.)

Instead of reaching out, she ran attack ads against Andrea Horwath before the budget was released. She also abandoned all three NDP policies legislated in her 2013 budget.

Second, Tim Hudak has been trying to bring down the Liberal government as soon as it formed after the 2011 election. He wouldn’t even bother to look at legislation before vowing to vote it down.

Good ol’ First-Past-the-Post

Suffice it to say, all three parties were involved in political jockeying. This is what parties do in a minority situation, instead of govern — thanks to our corrupt and undemocratic voting system, First-Past-the-Post.

(In the developed world, multi-party coalitions form the government and actually govern! They usually serve out the entire 4-year election term without any nonsense.)

Issue of punishment

But getting back to the issue of punishment, the Liberals are so hot and heavy for.

What about the Liberal party trying to buy a majority government during 2011 campaign with $1.1-billion of taxpayer money by shutting down unpopular gas plants they commissioned?

You can buy a lot of $80-million “forced elections” with $1.1-billion.

And it’s not as if Wynne was not connected to the scandal. She was at the heart of it. She was McGuinty’s campaign co-chair and her signature was on related documents.

Conclusion

Maybe the Liberals — and their shameless promoters masquerading as journalists — should be careful what they wish for.