The division in between Catholics and Protestants is one of the main divisions in Canada therefore we need a PM able to address it front and center, not a PM trying to dodge it like Harper did here.
Government manufactures money in the sense that it decides of everything starting with the monetary base up to the money multiplier (reserve requirement).
In between states, (international) relations are most importantly about exchanging, voluntarily if possible and if not forcibly, intelligence (secret) information about one another.
Like all political matters, we the people should try to decide tax issues inside a deliberative democratic system and when this system reaches its limits, we should decide it by a dictatorial democratic system.
My taxation principle is strictly based on the economic concept of opportunity cost (or reservation wage) which means that I would tax economic agent up to the point where s/he becomes indifferent in between pursuing her/his present activities and shifting to her/his next best option.
The question I think is not so much about the possibility for a nation to rely on secretive information but the necessity for a nation to learn to live with that kind of information.
A dictator can be widely supported by his people only because of his charisma that is why I think that democracy is more about the quality of involvement than about the quantity.