McGuinty to Flaherty: Back Off

[myata]

What about that government (i.e the one he - Flaherty - represents) is appropriate? Their record on their own priorities (environment? openness / transparency? "fighting" crime while dismantling gun control??). They're a bunch of loudmouth ideology driven social conservatives bent on advancing their agenda by all means. Just recall the wonderful state of the province when they were in power - at the top of economic cycle - permanent strikes / service charges / multibillion deficits. Counting on short memory / thoughtless slogan catching, but it just may not work in Ontario, with among the best educated population in the world.

[Alta4ever]

What about that government (i.e the one he - Flaherty - represents) is appropriate? Their record on their own priorities (environment? openness / transparency? "fighting" crime while dismantling gun control??). They're a bunch of loudmouth ideology driven social conservatives bent on advancing their agenda by all means. Just recall the wonderful state of the province when they were in power - at the top of economic cycle - permanent strikes / service charges / multibillion deficits. Counting on short memory / thoughtless slogan catching, but it just may not work in Ontario, with among the best educated population in the world.

So why is it that around the world those countries that have the lowest corperate and business taxes are the ones that have the growing economies?

The Conservatives are right on this, many of you don't remeber I bet but there was a time when that tax rates were up to 80% in Ontario, and you are heading for that again. Higher tax rates does not generate new business ventures, as a business owner would you set up a manufacting plant were you pay 5-10% more to operate, or do you set up in an area where you can save that 5-10% and pass it along to the consumer and be more compeditive?

Just because you may have some of the best educatated doesn't mean you have the best common sense. There is a big difference between theory and reality.

[myata]

So why is it that around the world those countries that have the lowest corperate and business taxes are the ones that have the growing economies?

Like e.g. ? The US? With their whopping year on year budget deficits and economy in the recession?

The Conservatives are right on this, many of you don't remeber I bet but there was a time when that tax rates were up to 80% in Ontario, ....

would be good to substantiate it otherwise it's just a hearsay like when I was young ....

tax rates does not generate new business ventures, as a business owner would you set up a manufacting plant were you pay 5-10% more to operate, or do you set up in an area where you can save that 5-10% and pass it along to the consumer and be more compeditive?

I know the theory, but why don't we just take them on their record instead? The province was in a permanent deficit mode, and cities, schools and hospitals were scrambling to make the ends meet. True, there was an appearance of an abnormal abundance of McDonalds and pizza jobs (not unlike the "boom" that Alberta is experiencing now) but I'd be reluctant to link this to a long term foundations of prosperity. Note also what whenever conservatives with a "lower taxes at all cost" motto take hold, somebody else eventually has to recover the country from a deep deficit (Canada under Mulroney's, Ontario - Harris, USA - Bushes; in which case it's now debatable whether the deficit can even be reversed). Anyways, rather then follow these diversion games, let's just keep an eye on their own (Harper / Flaherty) achievements. Let's remember that they inherited an economy delivering year upon year multibillion surpluses. Most of it already spent on tax cuts. Let's see how it's going to bring us prosperity. It's their game and they should be to blame if it doesn't play out according to their beliefs.

[guyser]

In case anyone wants to compare....

http://www.kpmg.com/NR/rdonlyres/A180267A-...xRateSurvey.pdf

[guyser]

In case anyone wants to compare....

http://www.kpmg.com/NR/rdonlyres/A180267A-...xRateSurvey.pdf

Why is the US's higher ?

[Alta4ever]

Like e.g. ? The US? With their whopping year on year budget deficits and economy in the recession?

would be good to substantiate it otherwise it's just a hearsay like when I was young ....

I know the theory, but why don't we just take them on their record instead? The province was in a permanent deficit mode, and cities, schools and hospitals were scrambling to make the ends meet. True, there was an appearance of an abnormal abundance of McDonalds and pizza jobs (not unlike the "boom" that Alberta is experiencing now) but I'd be reluctant to link this to a long term foundations of prosperity. Note also what whenever conservatives with a "lower taxes at all cost" motto take hold, somebody else eventually has to recover the country from a deep deficit (Canada under Mulroney's, Ontario - Harris, USA - Bushes; in which case it's now debatable whether the deficit can even be reversed). Anyways, rather then follow these diversion games, let's just keep an eye on their own (Harper / Flaherty) achievements. Let's remember that they inherited an economy delivering year upon year multibillion surpluses. Most of it already spent on tax cuts. Let's see how it's going to bring us prosperity. It's their game and they should be to blame if it doesn't play out according to their beliefs.

I was thinking more like what is happening in Ireland right now. As for Ont. short term pain for long term gain. We tighted our belts here in the 90's put our economy on track and it worked.

[guyser]

Gee Dwight, ya could have made the PSA change awhile ago, I would like my $1000 back !

[Topaz]

It seems kinda funny that the Fed minister is worrying about Ontario`s manufacturing sector and yet he opens his big Con mouth and tells the WORLD how bad it is to come to Ontario and setup shop!! Is this how they are going to get votes in Ontario in the next Fed.election?

[capricorn]

Is this how they are going to get votes in Ontario in the next Fed.election?

Never mind Ontario. The Conservatives will get votes ....lots of votes .... in Quebec.

You know the old saying: "What you lose on the swings, you gain on the roundabout."

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp...8&dict=CALD

[jdobbin]

Never mind Ontario. The Conservatives will get votes ....lots of votes .... in Quebec.

From who exactly? Seems to me that the last number of polls have indicated that the BQ numbers are back up. The Liberal numbers are not great but I have seen no indication that the Tory numbers are soaring in recent weeks.

http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news...f3-6446887cef43

http://canadianpress.google.com/article/AL...qbLip_yN70vxRFQ

The last number of polls including one this week have the Liberals higher than the Tories in Quebec.

[margrace]

Ontario's economy has been based on a false economy, the car market, for many years. The sustanability of keeping these gas guzzling, road destroyer vehicals is catching up with us. The economy of Alberta has fallen right in with it too.

We cannot go on spending millions to support these companies and build these roads that they require, its time we admiitted this. But when GM says jump too many goverments listened to them. Admit it GM advocated the closure of public transport and example of this is the recently advocated Sky train in BC. When more expansion was planned GM put whole page adds in the Vancouver papers telling people that only drug addicts road the Sky Train and that it was not safe. They continued this until the Vancouver Govt. forced them to cancel the adds.

GM has done this since the 1930's.

[myata]

I was thinking more like what is happening in Ireland right now. As for Ont. short term pain for long term gain. We tighted our belts here in the 90's put our economy on track and it worked.

Ireland has received massive assistance from the EU. I'm not sure how much of its successes can be attributed to low taxes. Opposite examples where conservative governments indiscriminate cutting of taxes result in deficits and deterioration of basic services, are numerous.

[Alta4ever]

Ireland has received massive assistance from the EU. I'm not sure how much of its successes can be attributed to low taxes. Opposite examples where conservative governments indiscriminate cutting of taxes result in deficits and deterioration of basic services, are numerous.

I guess that all depends on what you consider to be basic service. I suspect that you and I greatly differ on this subject.

[myata]

Sure, and one can think that there should be no services delivered or managed by the government. Such as: roads; education; healthcare; parks; and so on.

And I'm OK with that. As long as they say it openly and clearly to the public. I.e. elect us, and we'll cut your taxes, but you'll have no services from us, and maybe the economy (that's supposed to take off) will let you pick up the slack. That latter may or may not happen though. No guarantees given. Just look how its taking off down south after all the Bush's cuts.

[Keepitsimple]

From who exactly? Seems to me that the last number of polls have indicated that the BQ numbers are back up. The Liberal numbers are not great but I have seen no indication that the Tory numbers are soaring in recent weeks.

http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news...f3-6446887cef43

http://canadianpress.google.com/article/AL...qbLip_yN70vxRFQ

The last number of polls including one this week have the Liberals higher than the Tories in Quebec.

In Quebec, what the polls do not indicate is how badly the Liberals would fare outside of Montreal. If the LIberal vote completely tanks, as Quebec Liberal insiders are alluding, the Conservatives would not be as hampered by Federalist vote splitting. That means that in many ridings outside of Montreal, it would be mano-a-mano between the Bloc and the Conservatives and they could pick up a decent number of seats. Who knows if that will happen....but that's a scenario that seems plausible.

[HisSelf]

This whole thing is turning into a disaster for the Conservatives. Even the business channel is wondering if Flaherty has lost his marbles. They're actually making McGuinty look good. Why? Because the first thing Ontarians are thinking about when the see Flhaerty mouthing off is what he and his buddies did to Ontario when they were in power. It wasn't pretty.

And now it's happening again at the Federal level. Keep your eye on the national debt. "Captain. She can't take any more!" "Never mind that Scottie, just put your pedal to the metal!"

Beam me up. Please.

[jdobbin]

In Quebec, what the polls do not indicate is how badly the Liberals would fare outside of Montreal. If the LIberal vote completely tanks, as Quebec Liberal insiders are alluding, the Conservatives would not be as hampered by Federalist vote splitting. That means that in many ridings outside of Montreal, it would be mano-a-mano between the Bloc and the Conservatives and they could pick up a decent number of seats. Who knows if that will happen....but that's a scenario that seems plausible.

The BQ numbers seems to be rising. That poses a danger for all the federalist vote.

I think the Tories are wishing awfully hard that they are going to have a major breakthrough in Quebec but they need both the BQ and Liberal numbers to go down before that happens.

[HisSelf]

The BQ numbers seems to be rising. That poses a danger for all the federalist vote.

I think the Tories are wishing awfully hard that they are going to have a major breakthrough in Quebec but they need both the BQ and Liberal numbers to go down before that happens.

I agree. The Tories have tried to make too much hay on something that happened in Quebec. Quebec is a BQ/PQ/Lib fight. Harper is a protest vote, and I wouldn't be surprised if he was second to the Greens in that category...

[Topaz]

So now Harper is backing off and now the minister of Finance is the bad guy and Harper is out there saying everything is okay with McGuinty and Ontario. This guy uses people for his own good and throws they away that`s why he can`t be trusted. I wonder if Harper thought the people in Ontario who were unemlpued from the Manufacturing sector would go against McGuinty and support Harper? Well, if he did he found out that they didn`t!!

[myata]

With Harper's crowd so bent on self distruction in Ontario, the real question for progressive minded people of the country is this: what can we promise / give to Dion so that he'd consider moving on to the new horizons?

[TOhasCLASS]

Our strong Canadian dollar, Corporate Greed and Globalization are the real reason Ontario is hurting in the manufacturing sector not high taxes .... the more time rolls along and the more we let imports from countries with unfair/en-even labour practices bring products in unhampered the more the Corporate elite destroy and erode our economy turning us all into service workers with low wages.

Pure politics on Flaherty's part ... very big miscalculation....

When the election happens the CP will get it back when Dalton / Dion remind Ontario of Harper distain for Ontario.

[White Doors]

I agree. The Tories have tried to make too much hay on something that happened in Quebec. Quebec is a BQ/PQ/Lib fight. Harper is a protest vote, and I wouldn't be surprised if he was second to the Greens in that category...

ouch.. have you seen the latest polling numbers from quebec?

lol

[White Doors]

Our strong Canadian dollar, Corporate Greed and Globalization are the real reason Ontario is hurting in the manufacturing sector not high taxes .... the more time rolls along and the more we let imports from countries with unfair/en-even labour practices bring products in unhampered the more the Corporate elite destroy and erode our economy turning us all into service workers with low wages.

Pure politics on Flaherty's part ... very big miscalculation....

When the election happens the CP will get it back when Dalton / Dion remind Ontario of Harper distain for Ontario.

Generally people who profess to have class know how to spell such words as 'en' and 'distain' not to mention the grammer. ouch!

[Alta4ever]

Our strong Canadian dollar, Corporate Greed and Globalization are the real reason Ontario is hurting in the manufacturing sector not high taxes .... the more time rolls along and the more we let imports from countries with unfair/en-even labour practices bring products in unhampered the more the Corporate elite destroy and erode our economy turning us all into service workers with low wages.

Pure politics on Flaherty's part ... very big miscalculation....

When the election happens the CP will get it back when Dalton / Dion remind Ontario of Harper distain for Ontario.

You should be happy that the dollar is high otherwise you couldn't afford you heating bill. If our dollar was still trading around .60 US your gas, fuel, and electricity bills would be 40% higher.

A stroung dollar isn't such a bad thing, it just means that the manufacturing sector needs to adjust business practices so they can cope.

[August1991]

Our strong Canadian dollar, Corporate Greed and Globalization are the real reason Ontario is hurting in the manufacturing sector not high taxes .... the more time rolls along and the more we let imports from countries with unfair/en-even labour practices bring products in unhampered the more the Corporate elite destroy and erode our economy turning us all into service workers with low wages.

Pure politics on Flaherty's part ... very big miscalculation....

When the election happens the CP will get it back when Dalton / Dion remind Ontario of Harper distain for Ontario.

Dunno.

First of all, Flaherty may just be right. Have you considered that possibility? Taxes are high in Ontario compared to other jurisdictions and this has had as an effect to reduce economic activity. So, Flaherty is simply stating his opinion about McGuinty's economic policies.

Second, I think the federal Tories can see that McGuinty is a weak politician. He won the last election by luck. Moreover, the federal Tories realize that criticizing the McGuinty government will help the Tories in Ontario (among the pool of potential Conservative voters there) and elsewhere in Canada too.

This federal government will not kowtow to the self-appointed barons in Toronto.