Suggested Coalition is Ludicrous

I watched the economic update given by Finance Minister Flaherty in Parliament on January 27. Yes, it was dry and yes, it was conservative, in both an upper and lowercase way.

Uppercase, because Flaherty is an ideologue, who I suspect finds it difficult to glance to the left much less consider the validity of any concept even slightly left of center. Lowercase, because the statement emphasized restraint by declaring that the coffers will not be opened just for the sake of being seen to do so. However, he did state that when there is clear indication of what is needed the Conservative party would act, even if it means a deficit.

Indeed, Flaherty did act in the case of RRIF’s and the negative impact the market downturn has had on their value. If left unanswered, this could have required seniors to sell assets to put money into their RRIF’s to ensure they could meet the minimum withdrawal requirements.

Flaherty’s proposed 25% reduction to the mandatory minimum withdrawal, for this year only, does minimize the severity of the drop in a RRIF’s value. A better solution would have been to change the definition of a minimum withdrawal. For example, based on the calculated long-term value, at the time of the withdrawal, all minimum withdrawals should be equal to that value divided by the number of years remaining. Such a minimum would then decrease if the market drops and increase when the market recovers.

It is true that Flaherty did not act to help the big three motor companies. However, considering when the CEOs of the parent corporations went to Washington to plead for money, they did so without any plan. In fact, when asked by a congressional committee member how much they wanted, they could not answer. Therefore, I would suggest, if the parents of the Canadian car companies have no concrete plans for recovery, giving the Canadian subsidiaries any more money from the federal (or for that matter provincial) coffers would not be prudent, until there is a concrete plan.

Revoking the law that gave $1.95 to each political party for every vote cast for them in the last elections is a reasonable outcome for a flawed law. This legacy from the Chrétien era provides an edge to the party in power, which was likely his motivation in the passing the law. While I do not believe generally in using tax revenues to fund political parties, such public funding law would have more merit if it did two things;

• Established a cost per eligible voter, similar to what Ontario does for municipal elections.
• Subsidized a portion of that amount for each candidate of an official party running in a federal constituency based on its eligible voter population.

Although likely more expensive it would be far more equitable than the current approach.

Lastly, the suggested coalition government will be made up of the Liberals and NDP, with the support of the BLOC. The idea of a government with the recently resigned Stephan Dion as Prime Minister and relying on the support of a party, whose raison d’etre is the break up of Canada, is from my perspective ludicrous.

To cite as a reason for a coalition is that the majority of Canadians did not vote for the Conservatives is a facetious argument. There has seldom been a government elected, be it minority or majority, which obtained more than 50% of the votes much less 50% of the eligible voters.

As an aside, this whole brouhaha will be commonplace if the proportional representation zealots have their way.

Comments

[casual observer]

I am so tired of the bloc baiters...I thought Joe McCarthy and John Birch were dead years ago...yes one of the Blocs policy is for some form of Quebec devolution..and it's something I don't agree with...but they are entirely responsible and democratic... (haven't even hear of them listen in on private phone calls# and within their rights #fortunately they can't get most Quebecois on the side#...on the other hand they have lots of policy that progressive Canadian can support...and unlike Jim Flaherty they support folks in their own province...whenever I hear the Tories or the Grits trot out the socialist line about the NDP or the separatist lingo about the BQ I smile because I know they call out those names in a sense of panic...Flaherty and his buddy Harper tried playing campus style bully boy politics and the Stephen Dion, the man with egg on his face just a month ago will soon be serving up Tory omelettes on Susex Drive...its a script only the Bard #not
"i" not John) could have written

[Wayne Smith]

Here's the deal:

To be the government, you have to have the confidence of Parliament.

Stephen Harper hasn't got it.

It's his own fault.