Being the odd man out on the arts funding issue, this is what Mr. Harper had to say about it: “I think when ordinary working people come home, turn on the TV and see a gala of a bunch of people at, you know, a rich gala… claiming their subsidies aren’t high enough… I’m not sure that’s something that resonates with ordinary people.”
So, typically, kind of mean-spirited, somewhat insulting, somewhat misleading (since when are most artists rich?) — but that’s not what I want to focus on. See what he actually said there? What he used as his example? “I think when ordinary working people come home, turn on the TV and see a gala…”
You mean ordinary Canadian come home from work and immediately turn to — the arts?
Of course most Canadians don’t list the arts as “top of mind” issues. They simply take them for granted. It’s woven into the fabric of our lives. TV, galas, concerts, festivals, dance recitals, musicals, music downloads, CDs, DVDs, theatre, plays, museums, galleries, radio, novels, poetry, children’s literature, essays, magazines… It’s all part of the arts, high and low. And government helps fund a good part of them.
No political party would win if they pledged to make arts funding the biggest part of the budget… But none would win if they pledged to eliminate all cultural activity from this country, either. TV, galas, concerts, festivals, dance recitals, musicals, music downloads, CDs, DVDs, theatre, plays, museums, galleries, radio, novels, poetry, children’s literature, essays, magazines — we do want at least some of that to be made by Canadians, in Canada.
I leave you now with this hilarious video by Michel Rivard. Even if you speak French, it’s even funnier with the English subtitles on.
(RDtNVC: Reason of the day to not vote Conservative)
I think I finally understand the fuzzy blue sweaters now.
Harper in fuzzy blue sweater
Because, when I thought the Conservative were going to run on the “Canada is strong” theme, I didn’t see why they wanted the leader to appear more soft and fuzzy. Seemed incongruous.
But, that’s actually not their theme, is it? It’s more like, Canada is weak. Canada is in danger. And only the Conservatives can protect you.
For that message to come across, they have to totally that old “Harper is scary” thing. He has to look safe and reassuring. So Canadians are ready to bury our heads in the sand and join them behind the barricades.
Safe. Safe from crazy-ass, risky ideas like taxing pollution instead of income.
And of course, safe from the bad guys. The criminals. The gangs.
Only the Conservatives can protect us. “Soft on crime does not work.”
I like how he says “Soft on crime” as though it’s actual thing, and not just a cliché. As though the Liberals had previously passed the famous “Soft on crime” bill, or something.
Anyway, whatever “soft on crime” is, apparently that’s what we have now. And I guess it’s just not working.
Wait, what’s that flying by there? Is that an actual fact?
Canada’s overall national crime rate, based on incidents reported to police, hit its lowest point in over 25 years in 2006, driven by a decline in non-violent crime.
The overall crime rate fell in every province and territory in 2006.
Police reported 605 homicides in 2006, 58 fewer than in 2005. This resulted in a rate of 1.85 homicides per 100,000 population, 10% lower than in 2005. The national homicide rate has generally been declining since the mid-1970s, when it was around 3.0.
Virtually all provinces and territories reported declines in their homicide rate in 2006. The most notable occurred in Ontario, where there were 23 fewer homicide.
Statistics Canada
Boy, yeah. We sure don’t want to keep that up!
But wait, wait — buried in there — what’s that about youth crim?. Up 3%? 3%! Now there’s your “soft on crime”. It’s that darned young offenders act. Because, really, until we start incarcerating 14-year-olds, how are they going to learn to be better criminals?
Oh, pesky facts, stop telling me that youth offenders actually get incarcerated at much higher rates than adult offenders, and are much less likely to be released early (per John Howard Society).
Instead, I’m going to take a Conservative tack and tell you a story. If they were to tell you one, it would be about some hideous youth committing some appaling crime. Mine will be a little different.
At 15 years old, Ashley Smith was arrested for throwing crab apples at her post man and was placed in youth custody.
Throwing crab apples.
She proved to be a less than compliant inmate, though, and her original sentence was extended repeatedly in response to her behavior, which included many incidents of self-harm. Although she showed clear signs of mental disturbance, she received no consistent psychiatric treatment. She spent two-thirds of her sentence in a nine-by-six-foot isolation cell.
At 18 years, she was transferred to a federal prison. There she was subjected to pepper spray and a stun gun. And she was kept in segregation for nearly a year. She filed a grievance against conditions in segregation, which included inadequate protection against cold. But, against federal regulations, the grievance was ignored.
Ashley Smith committed suicide on October 19, 2007. She was 19.
Postscript: I wrote this in 2008, originally. In 2013 there was an inquest into Ashley Smith’s death. It was ruled a homicide. “She had tied a piece of cloth around her neck while guards stood outside her cell door and watched. They had been ordered by senior staff not to enter her cell as long as she was breathing.”
The Liberals were much more visible this week, taking my advice by taking on Harper on a number of fronts, including childcare. The Liberal team was emphasized, which seemed wise. Dion explained the Green Shift on The Current podcast, and was, to my mind, clear and convincing.
The NDP and the Conservatives, meanwhile, were busily injecting a rare note of humour into the campaign. The NDP experienced the resignation of not one but two, toke-smokin’, car-drivin’, former members of the Marijuana Party as candidates for the party in BC, because they apparently didn’t bother to YouTube them before offering them the nomination. And the Conservatives, of course, had the whole “death by a thousand cold cuts” kerfuffle. Am I a bad person because that made me chuckle?
Anyway, this inspired the fourth apology by Harper since the campaign began (emphasizing why he’s so reluctant to let his candidates speak to the media), but the first that seemed to stick. And stick. Please, enough with the calls for his resignation, already! Lack of regulation might be the serious issue here. A dark sense of humour is not.
The US economy provided some excitement, with huge companies collapsing and stocks going on a roller-coaster ride in the wake of the sub-prime mortgage crisis. It ended only when the Bush government reversed its laissez-faire policies and stepped in with massive investment. (Fun fact: $1 trillion could buy you 5 billion iPhones. Or 1 war in Iraq.)
Canada never allowed sub-prime mortgages, and so isn’t at risk of this exact same crisis. But there’s a more general lesson here about what happens when governments aren’t involved enough, when companies (banks, meat) that need regulation don’t get it, when governments are downsized to the point of ineffectuality.
[Harper’s] inability to think in a positive, passionate way about large political projects shows starkly at this tense economic moment. In policy, he prefers to act small. His favourite word is modest. “Our plan is simple, modest and practical,” he said about a tax break for home buyers. As if he’d rather do nothing but, in a pinch, will settle for the least possible. His modest GST cuts give little relief, but they whittle government revenues down so he can claim we can’t afford much anyway. This week, he announced a ban on tobacco ads, which are already banned, and sales to kids, ditto. I know this “modesty” reflects Stephen Harper’s political philosophy and he could rattle on passionately about why government should do the least it can, for the good of us all. It’s the reason he wants a majority: so he can do even less and eliminate more. But he may be the wrong leader at the wrong time.
The below, partly about equalization, was probably wrong and has likely changed since, but keeping it for the historical record, I guess.
Dalton McGuinty’s been fighting for a more equitable share of federal resources for a long time now—did you know there was a whole, official Ontario government website on this topic? It was informative. For example, while I already knew that Ontarians got considerably less per-person health care funding than other Canadians, I didn’t realize that Ontarians have to work longer to qualify for EI, and are eligible for fewer weeks of payout.
So twisted is the equalization formula, in fact, that even even if Ontario were to become a poor, “have-not” province, its residents would continue to be net contributors to the system. In other words, if Ontario’s economy were to tank to the extent that it qualified for equalization payments, that additional money would actually come in part from — Ontario.
So no wonder some argue that the system makes Ontario the “patsy” of confederation.
Now, much as I’d like to, I can’t really blame all of this on the Conservatives. They didn’t write all these rules, it is a long-standing problem, and I’ll accept that these things are complicated and expensive and can’t necessarily all be fixed in two years.
I’m just not so sure, given their track record, that they’d start fixing them in the next four years, either.
You will recall Flaherty helpfully saying that Ontario is the “last place” that businesses would want to invest, as though he were any kind of example to follow in tax policy.
And you might not recall this, but they’re also trying to pass Bill C-22, which tries give Ontario less representation in Ottawa. The proposal gives BC and Alberta 1 new federal seat for every 100,000 increase in population, while Ontario gets half that—one new seat per 200,000 increase. Hmm. Couldn’t be because the westerners are more inclined to vote Conservative, is it? No, it just means that McGuinty is a “small man of Confederation”, according to Conservative House Leader Peter Van Loan.
Yes, it was a broken promise. The Conservatives promised not to tax income trusts, and then they did it anyway, basically rendering them extinct by 2011.
But see, I’m not against politicians second-guessing themselves once out of the election heat, really researching the issue, getting advice from experts. And if they determine that their promise really isn’t in the country’s best interest—that it could actually be harmful—then I’m all for them breaking it.
And I actually thought this was one of those cases.
An article by the quite conservative Al Coates, in the KW Record, of all places, caused me to reconsider this.
The rational for banning income trusts—the reason I thought it might have been wise—was to avoid two problems:
Tax leakage, because the trusts pay no corporate tax—all profit go directly to investors.
The “hollowing-out” of corporate Canada—great Canadians corporations being converted into trusts.
But as with so many of the Conservative actions, the decision was a complete surprise to the investors and companies involved. Investors were hurt financially (famously, a lot of seniors), and companies counting on funding from them were left vulnerable.
And Coates argues that the widespread, unintended effect of the decision was this:
Many of those trusts have become takeover targets by giant private-equity players. They are being taken off the map and the radar, folded internally into big pension plans, never again to be seen as income-producing opportunities for Canadians.
Al Coates
He gives the example of BCE, one I’m very familiar with, having relatives living through the nightmare of BCE’s takeover by the Teacher’s Pension Plan.
The buyout will be financed through borrowing and BCE will be taken private, dismantled, chopped into pieces and perhaps sold off in parts. Already, thousands of BCE mid-level jobs have been whacked and there will be more to come. [It’s so true!]
BCE is a cash-flow machine and its free cash will be used to finance the debt. The new owners of BCE—teachers and its American partners—will pay no corporate tax because, in the first place, pension plans don’t pay tax, and for the other buyout partners, there also are offsetting cash-flow and debt-service factors at work. Ottawa will be lucky to see a wooden nickel in ongoing corporate tax proceeds.
Al Coates
I’m so far from an expert in this stuff, it’s not funny. But it sounds like, just maybe, this is not a case of “tough but necessary” decision-making, based on sober second thought and analysis; it could be yet another hasty and myopic decision that will only weaken Canada’s economy in the long run.
And that’s a lot worse than just a broken promise.
Update from 2023: Of course, this lower GST rate remains in place to this day, 8 years into a Liberal government, with no suggestion of change from any party, far as I know.
An easy one for today: Cutting the GST, a policy so bad it actually united right and left [link removed as no longer valid] in opposition to it.
I think Jeffrey Simpson’s “A triumph of politics over economics” [link removed as no longer valid] summarizes the issue best:
Personal and corporate income tax cuts, as every economist knows, tend to stimulate savings and investment, which is what an economy needs to become more productive and competitive, thereby raising overall living standards. Lower consumption taxes stimulate more—wait for it—consumption, some of which leaks out of the economy in the form of purchasing imports and taking trips abroad.
The GST cut is the triumph of base politics over sensible economics.
Thus far, the Harper government’s tax and spending policies have been deeply disappointing for the country’s competitive position.
The government will have drilled a $10-billion hole in federal revenues through the two-point GST cut that will do nothing for productivity and competitiveness when compared with every other available tax cut, as the economists interviewed by the ROB illustrated this week.
Both policies represented the triumph of politics over economics, and short-term political considerations over long-term economic thinking.
Instead of this nonsense, tax policy should involve raising the GST, introducing carbon taxes, and then offsetting these new revenues by reductions in personal and corporate taxes to make Canada more efficient, competitive, fair and green.
Jeffrey Simpson, Globe and Mail
(And as an aside, CBC’s Marketplace did an interesting story this year where they showed that, in many cases, the GST cut was just swallowed up by rounding, giving more money to the seller and less to the consumer. Examples included movie and theatre tickets, whose “price includes GST” didn’t change a whit as the GST rate did. The companies just made more profit on each ticket.)
Sigh. So more’s the pity that we pretty much stuck with this 5% rate now. Though both the Liberals and the NDP argued against the cut, neither will take the political risk of undoing it (despite Conservative ads claiming the contrary). Only the Greens, bless them, are willing to to pledge to raise the GST back to 6% and use the increase to fund mass transit in cities [link removed as no longer valid].
What do the Conservatives have against arts and culture?
Too many naughty words, maybe?
That was the suspicion behind Bill C-10, which gave give the Heritage Minister the power to deny tax credits retroactively to films or television shows that are “contrary to public policy.” The film Young People Fucking was said to be the impetus for it—or rather, the title of the film was, as few had (or have) actually seen this movie. (My favourite quip in response was that if we’re just judging by title, we better ban Dirty Dancing and see something wholesome like Last Tango in Paris.) What was said to be especially chilling was its “retroactive” nature—since hard-won federal grants could be withdrawn, no one would have the confidence to go ahead with any movie projects.
Given how much attention the Bill eventually got, it’s easy to forget now that the Conservatives snuck it into “a lengthy omnibus bill of technical changes to tax law” — where, for an alarmingly long time, no one noticed it.
And it wasn’t exactly the first time they’d tried something like this. In 2006, a $4.6 million reduction in spending on Canadian museums was buried in a much larger announcement. “The news was a shock to the museum community and particularly the Canadian Museums Association, which thought it had an agreement with the Heritage Ministry for a new museums policy that would be more generous with all museums and provide stable funding.”
Then this summer? When the House wasn’t sitting, when you were on vacation, when arts groups were gearing up their programs for the fall? First up was the $13.7 million cut to programs that support artists’ travel. Then the motherlode—$44.8 million in cuts to five arts programs. With promises of more to come.
Now, there may be defensible reasons for these cuts. Maybe the programs were inefficient. Maybe they were outdated. Maybe they were just great, but were frankly sacrificed on the altar of the stupid GST tax cut and an interest in preventing the deficit from getting any bigger.
We just don’t know. Because the Conservatives haven’t bothered to tell us. They didn’t let it go through debate in Parliament, they didn’t hold a press conference on it, they didn’t consult any experts in the field, they didn’t warn anyone whose livelihood was about to be damaged. They just cut it. Surprise!
“The government has departed from its usual consultative process and cut these programs without warning,” said Stephen Ellis, a board member and former chair of the Canadian Film and Television Production Association and president of Toronto-based Ellis Entertainment Group, an independent TV production company.”
Of course, they are campaigning now, so it’s a little harder to avoid the questions. But just a little. In the Globe and Mail this weekend, Harper mumbled something about these being programs “Canadians don’t want” (when did we say that?), while the Heritage Minister told a CBC reporter they would be redeployed to other areas, though she couldn’t say to what, ran away when pressed, and refused to be interviewed formally on the subject.
That’s the best these spin doctors can do? Wow, now I’m comforted that these cuts were so very well-thought and won’t harm this very important sector of our economy one bit. Aren’t you?
The Liberals, the NDP, and the Green Party have all spoken out against these cuts.
The most interesting, and heartening, event this week was the Green Party being admitted to the leader’s debate after public protests of the initial exclusion. I heard leader Elizabeth May interviewed on CBC’s The House, and the woman is a breath of fresh air. She’s smart and articulate, but doesn’t hide behind that political “bull” filter that all the other leaders do.
The Conservatives have campaigned effectively this week, and this point certainly look to be on a victorious path. I’m not sure any of their gaffes—the infantile Dion cartoon (I’m just not linking to it), insulting the father of a slain soldier[had link here, but it’s no longer valid]—will really stick. But it certainly highlights to me just how mean and nasty significant parts of the Conservative crowd can be. Why so angry, folks? You’re winning!
The Liberals really weren’t very prominent, getting attention mostly for defending themselves against Conservative attacks. A good defence is important, but they need way more offence. It’s not as though the Conservatives haven’t left them plenty of targets. Start shooting at them, already.
The NDP, on the other hand, I’ve seen a surprising amount of. They’ve run an ad that I think isn’t too bad, though it’s a bit low on specifics. [Had link to this also; also no longer valid.]
I’ll end with some favourite comments from others this week:
But the mystery is: Why did the Harper-Layton-media juggernaut back down here? I never expected it. Jeffrey Simpson says they “misread public opinion,” which “insisted Ms. May be heard.” So what? The public wants lots of things. Usually it’s just ignored.
Rick Salutin, Globe and Mail
But increasingly, Mr. Harper himself looks like a deer frozen in the headlights of onrushing economic and environmental change. He insists now is not the time to risk a new course. But what does he propose?
It sounds more and more as if he is seeking a mandate to do nothing.
Ian Porter, letter to the editor
On some August nights, my father, a professor of economics and a rather conservative man, would phone me (during the cheap hours) to try to explain Stéphane Dion’s plan.
“It’s brilliant,” he’d say. “The cheapest way to lower greenhouse gases. It’ll lower income taxes, which slow growth …”
My father said Stephen Harper must know that it’s a good plan. “He can’t not know. He’s an economist. He’ll have an election before someone finds a way to explain it to the likes of you and his party goes down.”
Being childfree, this isn’t a big issue for me personally, but from living in the world, I know it’s a big issue.
Back in 2006, the Martin Liberals brought in a national child care program.
Upon taking office, the Harper Conservatives promptly cancelled it, amidst protests of the provinces, and individual citizens, who argued that $100 per child tax credit being offered instead wasn’t enough to help, and that the corporate tax credits weren’t enough to generate the predicted 125,000 new daycare spaces.
This proved prophetic, as the program has yet to create a single new daycare space [edit: I had reference for this at the time, but it’s now a dead link], and the OECD now ranks Canada last amongst industrialized nations in spending on early learning and child care programs.
The reasons the Conservatives gave for giving a tax credit instead of honouring the child care deal was “choice” and “fairness”. Creating daycare spaces helps only those who want their preschool children to have quality daycare; it doesn’t help those who make other choices: staying at home, or using a babysitter or nanny.
Isn’t that rather like saying that governments funding new programs in colleges and universities is unfair, because it doesn’t help young people who make other choices, such as getting a job right out high school, or backpacking through Europe?
In fact, isn’t it exactly like that? Universities and colleges provide post-secondary education. Not everyone attends a post-secondary institution. Still, those are largely tax payer funded. Canadians know that having a well-educated population is beneficial to the country in the long run, and therefore worth funding.
Colleges and universities are optional young adult education opportunities; quality daycare provides optional early childhood educational opportunities. The idea of replacing college/university funding with giving all 18-year-olds $100 a month for their “choice” of education options is clearly absurd.
But that’s exactly the policy the PCs are running on, except for preschool children rather than young adults.
There just aren’t enough daycare spaces in Canada to meet the demand. That is the problem government needs to address. Parents are not, currently, “free to choose” quality child care, because too many of them can’t find it at all, or they can’t afford it when they do (yes, it’s typically quite a bit more than $100 a month). The $1200 credit does you no good whatsoever if all available daycare spaces are gone.
The PC’s have been this week try to “scare” Canadians into thinking the Liberals will cancel the child tax credit; the Liberals have been busy denying it. And adding, in small print that I think should be large headlines, “Liberals do intend to replace the Conservative plan to create child care spaces, because their plan didn’t work.”
So I leave this with a few fast facts on child care in Canada [edit: another reference lost to time. This page was previously full of links!]. It’s from 2004, but unfortunately, I don’t think too much has changed.
Estimated amount that work-life conflicts cost Canadian organizations each year in time lost due to work absences: $2.7 Billion
Percentage of children aged 3 to 5 whose mothers work in the paid labour force: more than 70%
Compared to 12-year-old peers in New Zealand who received top-quality early childhood education, difference in Canadian scores on literacy and numeracy tests: 12 percentage points lower
In a 2003 poll, percentage of Canadians who:
agreed that Canada should have a nationally co-ordinated child care plan: 90%
agreed that there can be a publicly funded child care system that makes quality child care available to all Canadian children: 86%
[Edit: I have no idea what today’s stats are. But (writing this in 2023) the Liberals have been rolling out a funded childcare plan in the last few years. I believe a complaint is that demand exceeds the supply.]
, not Dee-Awnnnn. Silent final “n”.
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