Stay Informed

OTTAWA — Canadian taxpayers are footing the bill for a $650,000 ad campaign that boasts about a one-cent cut to the GST – a campaign that opposition members say is nothing more than pre-election advertising for the Conservatives.

Radio spots that began airing on Dec. 28 and newspaper advertisements that will soon appear in small weeklies inform Canadians of the benefits they will reap as a result of the sales-tax cut that came into effect on Jan. 1.

“The government of Canada is ringing in the New Year with another tax cut. Starting January 1st, the GST will be reduced to five per cent, the second cut in less than two years,” says the radio ad.

“This means significant tax savings on most everything you buy, like a coffee, a new home, a computer or a new car. To learn more about the GST reduction, visit Canada.gc.ca or call 1-800-O-Canada. 2008 will be a less taxing year for Canadians.”

I know some libloggers will be up in arms over for this, but I for one would like to thank Canada's New Government for keeping Canadians informed. Why, just this morning I was in line for a cup of coffee and had already calculated the cost when I remembered the ad I'd heard on the radio the night before. I quickly recalculated the new cost and managed to pay in exact change. I can only imagine what I would have done if I hadn't heard the ads - I might have had to put two pennies away when told the price! How embarrassing would that have been!

I'm sure this scene has happened thousands of times coast to coast this week (given the $650,000 price tag for the ads, hopefully many thousand times). I look forward to more informative ads in the coming months along the lines of "Did you know the Canadian government has been Adscam free for two years?".

On the Attack

The Tories have pounced on Dion’s somewhat misguided GST musings with a new attack ad. Apparently Dion has made "billions of dollars" in spending promises which is news to me because, outside of the environment, I haven’t really heard any promises. We also learn in the ads that 5 4 3.5 10 a nebulous number of priorities beats 3 pillars.

As for the ads themselves, yeah it looks like Ben and Rachel put them together, but it's still smart politics. With Dion down, might as well keep punching. And for the Tories flush with cash, they can certainly afford to run them.

I’ve been saying for a long time that the biggest problem with the Liberal Party isn't the leadership, MPs, policy positions, or recent baggage. The biggest problem is the structural inability of the party to fundraise. And the most discouraging thing is that there doesn't seem to be any sort of plan out there to turn things around.

Boo!

Kady O'Malley has the full run down of Halloween in Ottawa (including Harper's witty "man in the brown suit" costume). Although he dressed as Laurier, Dion did did provide a big scare to Liberal backbenchers by musing about raising the GST. It's probably not a smart thing to go around talking about something like that unless you're going to do it, but I do think it would be interesting to see a Liberal campaign plank calling for a restoration of the 7% GST, with all the revenue raised either going to income tax cuts or income splitting. Dion's got to show he stands for something next campaign and it would certainly be a bold position to take.

In other news...

1. As a big V for Vendetta fan, I enjoyed the Wingnutterer's look back on the "Income Trust Treason".

2. Stockwell Day has announced that the Canadian government will no longer oppose death sentences for Canadians abroad.

3. I don't really get the full gist of his criticism, but the man who could have been Premier is going after Stelmach hard on his royalty review compromise.

4. Jack Layton may have an ally in his quest to end ATM fees across Canada. It appears that Brian Mulroney was so sick of ATM fees back in 1993 that he needed to get $300,000 from Karlheinz Schreiber in cold, hard cash. Yes, it looks bad that he didn't declare it on his taxes either but I'm sure there's a logical explanation for everything. Unfortunately, I'm only at page 376 of his memoirs but I'm sure Brian will explain everything fully by the end of it!

5. And a big round of congrats for Andrew Coyne - the new national editor of Macleans!

Trick or Treat

It's interesting to see the Tories rush what would have been a good news spring budget up to October and take a 1% GST cut out of their next election platform by bringing it in now. I suppose with money to burn and Dion calling for tax cuts, it was inevitable that Flaherty would be slashing taxes. As for the GST cut, given that every economist and every news story calls it "bad policy but good politics", I suspect Harper recognized that it's usefulness as an election issue had passed and that he might as well get it off the table. People aren't stupid - after a while "bad policy but good politics" simply becomes "bad policy and bad politics".

More interesting is the arrival of a new auditor general's report. Even from Paris, the timing looks a little coincidental:

Back in the mid-'00s, we used to enjoy a chuckle whenever the Paul Martin crew would come up with some extraordinarily contrived sideshow in an attempt to bury an embarrassing headline.

But even that PMO would never have thought it could get away with announcing tax cuts on 24 hours' notice, simply to bury an auditor general's report.

UPDATE: As pointed out by an astute reader, the federal government must give 60 days notice to the provinces that harmonize their taxes before changing the GST. As a result, if they wanted to make the change for January 1st, it had to be announced yesterday so it was likely not connected to the AG's report. It's still interesting to see them rush the GST cut to January 1st, but it doesn't look like there's anything involved in the day-to-day timing of it.


UPDATE2: I elaborate a bit more on my thoughts on this Macleans post.