McGuinty to Flaherty: Back Off

[Keepitsimple]

The Star is certainly not a Conservative support but if you took the time to read deep into today's article, you would have found support for Flaherty from a leading economist. Seeing as the Star usually looks for someone to bolster McGuinty's arguments, I guess the pickings were slim. This is really not a small issue. Unless Ontario starts to make itself more business friendly, we'll start to see an exodus of companies like we did when the NDP were in power. Here's the supporting quote and a link to the article:

Toronto Dominion Bank chief economist Don Drummond told the Toronto Star last week Ontario's business tax rates "stick out like a sore thumb" compared with the rest of Canada. If current trends continue, Drummond warned, Ontario's overall tax rate on new businesses will be 30.17 per cent by 2012 versus 18.8 per cent for Quebec.

"There are definitely elements of Ontario's tax regime that are going to have to change," he said.

Link: http://www.thestar.com/Article/308811

[eyeball]

McGuinty defended Ontario's approach, telling Harper that the general corporate income tax rate of 14 per cent and manufacturer's corporate income tax rate of 12 per cent "are both below the 15 per cent federal corporate income tax rate your government will achieve in 2012 – after your corporate income tax cuts have taken effect."

The federal corporate income tax rate is currently 19.5 per cent, said a spokesperson for Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan.

Not that I'm a big fan of McGuinty or corporate tax cuts but he has a valid point here don't you think? Where does the federal government get off telling other jurisdictions to lower their tax rates more than they themselves are willing to?

[Topaz]

Not that I'm a big fan of McGuinty or corporate tax cuts but he has a valid point here don't you think? Where does the federal government get off telling other jurisdictions to lower their tax rates more than they themselves are willing to?

Yes especially a guy who help run up the debt in Ontario.

[Regulus de Leo]

Not that I'm a big fan of McGuinty or corporate tax cuts but he has a valid point here don't you think? Where does the federal government get off telling other jurisdictions to lower their tax rates more than they themselves are willing to?

They can tell other jurisdictions who constantly whine and ask for more money how best to create a successful tax base. The feds lowered GST. Ontario could raise the PST by 1% (provinces need more tax revenues for expensive items like healthcare and education) and cut corporate taxes to encourage business.

[August1991]

I don't understand what is going on here. It seems that Flaherty is picking a fight with McGuinty. Why? Here are some theories.

1. The federal Tories feel that some Ontario-bashing will play well in the rest of the country. (Trudeau used to always bash the provincial Quebec Liberal government as a way to show the ROC that he was not "biased".)

2. The federal Tories have decided that McGuinty is weak in Ontario in particular with their potential clientele - suburban, rural.

3. McGuinty is a weak politician, lucky to have no opposition, who is following bad policies. He's ripe for criticsm.

OTOH, to form a majority, the federal Tories need votes among either women, urban voters in English Canada or Quebecers outside of Montreal. I don't see how this strategy of attacking McGuinty will really help. No one in Quebec cares and too many women will only see the Tories as being bullies.

This is clearly a deliberate move and Flaherty is playing the point. What's Harper up to?

[jdobbin]

OTOH, to form a majority, the federal Tories need votes among either women, urban voters in English Canada or Quebecers outside of Montreal. I don't see how this strategy of attacking McGuinty will really help. No one in Quebec cares and too many women will only see the Tories as being bullies.

This is clearly a deliberate move and Flaherty is playing the point. What's Harper up to?

It hasn't helped them. Decima poll lat week showed that the public supports McGuinty on the bullying.

[jdobbin]

Yes especially a guy who help run up the debt in Ontario.

And now makes expensive pledges to run trains in his riding.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...tional/Ontario/

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's surprise pledge to run train service from Toronto to Peterborough, Ont. - on a route through his riding - may have been included in the federal budget, but his department still could not say yesterday how much it will cost, how many passengers it might carry, or who will operate it.

"The final cost of the specific project ... has not yet been defined," spokeswoman Nathalie Gauthier said in an e-mail. "Details regarding this project, including the service provider, will be decided in the future."

But critics say the idea will be very costly, requiring large subsidies to carry a comparatively small number of passengers. And they point out it does not appear on Ontario's multibillion-dollar list of priority public-transit projects across the Toronto region that are already awaiting funding.

The plan to revive passenger rail service along tracks owned by Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. from Toronto's central Union Station to Peterborough - closed by Via Rail in 1990 - has been championed by Peterborough's Conservative MP, Dean Del Mastro, and was welcomed by local leaders.

Flaherty is spending taxpayer money like a drunken sailor.

[Keepitsimple]

The usual critics lined up pretty quickly but it might not be such an expensive proposition after all - based on the preliminary plans.

No-frills rail link outlined

Kawarthas proposal announced in the budget includes 2 trains, 8 stops – and no luxuries

Peterborough Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro says it would cost $88 million to restore the existing tracks, repair bridges and crossings, as well as $20 million for locomotives and passenger cars, based on the latest numbers from CP Rail.

The rail route would also offer some Durham Region commuters an alternative to the lack of parking and "poor reliability" of GO Transit's Lakeshore East line, says his report. But passengers shouldn't anticipate the luxury of VIA-1 or even Comfort class economy service aboard the proposed train, which could be on track by 2010, according to Del Mastro's report, which was released yesterday.

It wouldn't stand a chance of recovering its costs if it were run the same way as the old VIA line, which generated only 23 per cent of its operating costs and ran at a $2 million annual deficit.

Del Mastro suggests the service would offer only two-person train crews, no ticket agents unless a third-party vendor took on the job, no separate management structure and bare-bones station facilities such as shelters and two-car-long platforms.

He estimates total annual operating costs of about $3.5 million, about $237,000 less than the revenue that would be collected from 903 regular passengers.

Link: http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/309015

[M.Dancer]

The way VIA has been managed over the last 20 years, I was sure Ottawa hated rail service....

[Topaz]

The reason Flaherty is hitting the Liberals government is to help his wife, Christine Elliott, MPP for Whitby-Ajax, official opposition for women's isssue and the Attorney General in the Ontario PC`s. BTW, when will the rest of the PC`s drop the 'Progressive' name?

[Borg]

M'gintee just hates the truth being told.

Borg

[daniel]

1. Flaherty is positioning himself to take over from John Tory;

2.He's trying to position Ontario the take the blame over the Federal deficit that he's currently hiding (check the last provincial election Flaherty ran);

3. He's turning his back on the Chamber of Commerce

[Alta4ever]

Hmmmm. Compaire the Alberta and Sask economies. Both provinces have huge energy reserves, one has low corperate tax rates and the other had high corperate tax rates for years. Now which province has the better economy, the high tax base, and the most tax revenues.

I'll give you a hint, its the one with the low corperate tax rate, and flat tax system.

Jim is right David is wrong.

[HisSelf]

I lived in Ontario during the Harris/Eves years. I know what kind of guy Jim Flaherty is.

Harper made a big mistake when he put Flaherty in charge of Finance.

Sure it feels good. But then you get the doctor's report....

[Wild Bill]

I lived in Ontario during the Harris/Eves years. I know what kind of guy Jim Flaherty is.

Harper made a big mistake when he put Flaherty in charge of Finance.

Sure it feels good. But then you get the doctor's report....

I dunno if it's that simple. Harris had two HUGE majorities! It was pretty obvious that most Ontario folks were sick of the old kind of politics. One of Harris' strongest points was fiscal responsibility, an area where pretty well ALL Canadians had lost faith in politicians long ago.

Harris retires but Eves was boring as lukewarm bathwater! He runs a lacklustre campaign. The Liberals get back in.

First thing they do is announce that the Tory's had left a deficit of a few billion dollars. If you actually read past the intial headlines there was some controversy over how you calculated those deficits. Some folks said there was really no deficit at all.

Didn't matter. Those who always hated Harris and his crew for daring to try to live within our means were determined to make sure that we never went down his path again! McGuinty got a lot of money from teachers unions and such to buy his support.

So now we apparently don't have any deficit but we also find that a lot of things don't work any better. In fact, many are worse. One of our local hospitals put in a fancy new system to speed up how fast you see a triage nurse in the emergency ward. I'm sure the faster times are being trumpeted proudly somewhere! Unfortunately, this just means you gain entry to an even bigger waiting area. I took my wife there and we waited over 8 hours before she was seen.

And no, it wasn't for a hangnail that could've waited! My wife is in the medical profession herself and if she decides to go to emergency it's because she HAS to go to emergency!

There wasn't much any of us who had voted for Harris could do. He was gone, and his successors were kinda lame. John Tory and his ilk are all fighting for the middle. Why? Dalton's already there! What would be the difference if we replaced him, except to the poor folks in Caledonia, of course.

We don't have a clear alternative. Both choices look essentially the same. If neither is appealing, why bother even voting?

[Topaz]

On TVO Friday night, the former Finance minister said he was told that the reason the Fed. minister is going after Ontario its not that he really cares about Ontario its all about Harper telling him to do so. When the elections come, Harper then can say well we told Ontario what he had to do so you can BLAME ME if the economy is heading south in manufacturing.

[Wild Bill]

On TVO Friday night, the former Finance minister said he was told that the reason the Fed. minister is going after Ontario its not that he really cares about Ontario its all about Harper telling him to do so. When the elections come, Harper then can say well we told Ontario what he had to do so you can BLAME ME if the economy is heading south in manufacturing.

Well, the fact that Ontario now has the highest business taxes not just in Canada but in North America might have something to do with our situation. The only thing that mitigated the high taxes was the low dollar and now that's wiped out. When he was in opposition McGuinty voted against every single one of Harris' tax cuts. Obviously he believes that having the highest taxes is a good idea! Meanwhile his only strategy seems to be to cry for federal bailouts. He might be correct that Ontario is paying too much as a "have" province but simply cutting back on what we contribute will not increase the level of business and manufacturing. It will simply give McGuinty more money to play with for vote-grabbing programs. Perhaps he wants to give Toronto more money so they can buy those "twice as expensive" streetcars from that Thunder Bay union shop or whatever...

Or am I missing something?

[freakinbox]

I have this to say,

It's not starting to head south it's been doing so for quite awhile. Stricter importing laws for the states are costing companies a fortune. It's Expensive to do manufacturing in Ontario. It's not that companies will start moving to the states. It's they are now! I've dealt with it, it isn't fun. Because the company won't tell you they are planning to move they will just start laying people off and then leave the country. But in this it doesn't always work out for the company. They don't all move over there and have a happy ending. JessEm the company I worked for seems to be great but one of the cabinet companies another job I worked for distrubuted for went under because of the move, their orders used to be filled within a couple days when they were in Pickering. Once they got to the states it went from a couple days to a couple weeks to a couple months to we don't know when we can get them to you.

[Topaz]

Ontario is doing what it can for business but as McGuinty said, if he gives companies tax breaks then whose going to pay for the healthcare system? If they can't bring enough in after the corporate taxes cuts thern its going to be the Ontario taxpayers paying higher taxes. The Cons left a debt after Harris left and the Feds don't give Ontario its rightful share of the pot!!

[drew]

I don't understand what is going on here. It seems that Flaherty is picking a fight with McGuinty. Why? Here are some theories.

1. The federal Tories feel that some Ontario-bashing will play well in the rest of the country. (Trudeau used to always bash the provincial Quebec Liberal government as a way to show the ROC that he was not "biased".)

2. The federal Tories have decided that McGuinty is weak in Ontario in particular with their potential clientele - suburban, rural.

3. McGuinty is a weak politician, lucky to have no opposition, who is following bad policies. He's ripe for criticsm.

OTOH, to form a majority, the federal Tories need votes among either women, urban voters in English Canada or Quebecers outside of Montreal. I don't see how this strategy of attacking McGuinty will really help. No one in Quebec cares and too many women will only see the Tories as being bullies.

This is clearly a deliberate move and Flaherty is playing the point. What's Harper up to?

The reason that Flaherty is saying what he is saying is because if we continue to have manufacturing jobs go under he can turn around and say it was McGuinty's fault and they warned them.

[August1991]

The reason that Flaherty is saying what he is saying is because if we continue to have manufacturing jobs go under he can turn around and say it was McGuinty's fault and they warned them.

That's kind of Theory #2 above. This strategy plays to potential suburban/rural Tory voters by reminding them that McGuinty is incompetent. Dunno.

[TOhasCLASS]

I find it very interesting how Harper's media averse party who can't come out and speak to his employer's (the public) on issues we want awnsers to can send his lacky to Ontario to beat his chest in front of Ontarians telling us we need to get our house in order ...

Trying to shake down Red Ontario to see if any of us will jump ship to the Conservatives ...

[guyser]

I find it very interesting how Harper's media averse party who can't come out and speak to his employer's (the public) on issues we want awnsers to can send his lacky to Ontario to beat his chest in front of Ontarians telling us we need to get our house in order ...

Trying to shake down Red Ontario to see if any of us will jump ship to the Conservatives ...

Good point.

I dont know why (maybe they did) the prov Libs dont go on the warpath and shout how bad Flaherty performed and how he cooked the books during the last term with Eves (or was it Eaves?).

Two words....Shut up Flaherty. ( so I cant count)

Its not that I disagree with him, it is how this is being done, publically and calling press conferences? Thats stupid, and hope we dont see this often.

Edited March 25, 2008 by guyser

[TOhasCLASS]

Good point.

I dont know why (maybe they did) the prov Libs dont go on the warpath and shout how bad Flaherty performed and how he cooked the books during the last term with Eves (or was it Eaves?).

Two words....Shut up Flaherty.

Its not that I disagree with him, it is how this is being done, publically and calling press conferences? Thats stupid, and hope we dont see this often.

Yes ... also maybe Flaherty can tell me why his party sold the 407 for a paultry 2 billion dollars ... Ontario could be using that revenue now for infastructure, health care .. gulp economic stimulus ..

Oh I forgot they needed that one time cash grab to help make their giant mismanagment of the finances look better ... what a joke

[thermo]

I have nothing to add, except that I find Flaherty's behavior beyond inappropriate.

I lack even the words to describe how disgusted I am with his behavior.