Flaherty's miscues give us reason to worry

Guelph Mercury:May 12, 2009 Gerry Barker

One might describe Finance Minister Jim Flaherty as the Alfred E. Neuman of Canadian politics.
Neuman, the Mad Magazine icon with the jug ears and stupid wide grin, was famous for the expression: "What me worry?"
For starters, the ebullient Flaherty who breezed through the country saying the recession is mild and we'll come out of it better than any other country, has now changed his tune saying it is more serious and deeper than first presumed.
"Relatively speaking," he recently told the Canada-UK Chamber of Commerce in London with a straight face, "this is a mild economic recession."
He'd better say a ton of Hail Marys for that big one.
The member from Whitby-Oshawa announced spending $9.3 million to clean up Oshawa harbour. He was met with a blistering protest from members of the Ontario auto industry who are facing either not having a job, huge reductions in pay or pensions, or job "furloughs" at no pay.
But Flaherty's biggest lie is about the issue that won't go away.
He ripped $35 billion from Canadian investors when he announced Oct. 31, 2006, that income trusts, the income of which millions of Canadians relied on for support, were to lose tax status in 2011.
He acted without a shred of evidence that there was "tax leakage" as he proclaimed. His senior department officials argued that the government was losing up to $500 million a year in revenue because of the legal tax treatment of income trusts. The rationale ignored the 38 per cent of income trusts held in RRSPs and RIFs that would eventually be totally taxable.
It was an artful dodge. Even the Bank of Montreal and Royal Bank of Canada concurred with a major independent study, instituted by former finance minister Ralph Goodale, that there was no income trust "tax leakage." The minister stuck stubbornly by his decision.
Already there has been fatal fallout as the Tories, stigmatized with the fiscal rape of investors, failed to win a majority last October. Conservative investors defected in the thousands. It cost Stephen Harper control of Parliament.
How did this happen? The furious arguments of insurance and corporate lobbyists were determined to destroy the tax status of competing income trusts. Chief focus among these were the annuity products sold by insurance companies whose sales had taken a beating in the past 10 years because of soaring public investment in income trusts.
Without any public input or debate in Parliament, Alfred E. Flaherty met the enemy and, guess what? They is us!
It was the greatest government theft of private wealth in history. And the Tories wonder why their bunker mentality has resulted in their job approval polls slipping behind the Liberals.
The Tories cut the GST, costing Canada $10 billion in lost revenue in an effort to seek a majority. Yet they knowingly bray that this specious income trust $500-million "tax leakage" has a basis of fact and evidence. But they refuse to reveal the underlying "evidence" for the public to evaluate and comment.
Canada's recession has two faces: The monetary one in which the economy has fallen off the cliff; and the political one, where government wanders aimlessly, like Diogenes, hopelessly searching the world for an honest issue.
You cannot surround yourself with fawning "yes" men and expect to meet the most serious economic crisis the country is experiencing since the Great Depression. You don't prorogue Parliament for two months in the face of shattering economic collapse just to save your government.
Aux barricades, mes amis!

Tamil protest on the Gardiner Expressway in Toronto.

While one can sympathize with Tamils who have relatives in Sri Lanka, it does not follow that we should accept their recent behaviour, shutting down the Gardiner Expressway with their “protests”.

This is another situation in which immigrants drag the problems of their origin countries into Canadian society, involving people who have nothing to do with the situation. This is especially so with Tamil-Canadians, who now are causing distress and inconvenience to the general public, insisting that the Canadian government get involved in their native country’s strife.

It is not without reason the Tamil “Tigers” have been declared a terrorist organization, and their terrorist activity now involve using civilians as shields in their battle with the legitimate government of Sri Lanka. Such behaviour is now reflected in their Toronto demonstrations, where they put their children in harms way on the Gardiner expressway to further their case for government intervention on their behalf.

It behooves our local government and our police to arrest and charge the leaders of the group that blocked the expressway, and to send children’s aide officials to investigate and possibly charge parents who put their children’s lives at risk. I must wonder how long these people would survive if they showed this type of behaviour in their native country. They are trying the patience of fellow Canadians, and stand to lose any goodwill they might have gained otherwise.

“Ignatiaeff yet to deliver substance” –Chantal Herbert, Sunday Star

“Ignatiaeff yet to deliver substance” –Chantal Herbert, Sunday Star


Mr. Ignatieff has a stellar record in academia, but as a politician, he has yet to sparkle. While it is encouraging to have a brilliant academic as a potential Prime Minister, intelligence has only a weak correlation with rationality and “emotional intelligence”. Hopefully, he has it all. What he does lack, though, is the charisma and easy manners of Chretien, or even better, an Obama. He needs to develop and clarify his ideas and plans for his party, providing voters with substance and a true alternative choice; and avoiding trite phrases and platitudes like “hope” and “yes we can”. Those are all ready well worn by Obama. Chantal Herbert’s definition of Ignatieff’s convention speech as “cardboard cake lathered in sticky icing” is hilarious but too true.

Michael Ignatieff is no doubt a man of substance, a strategic thinker and a tactician, every bit Harper’s equal. However, he needs to soften his demeanour, learn to smile with both his mouth and eyes; thus winning the hearts as well as the minds of Canadians. Otherwise, he might end up as just an English-speaking Dion.

“Iggy’s morally contemptible words” – Mark Steyn” in Maclean’s May 11th issue.

It seems that Maclean’s has chosen this issue to gang up on poor Iggy –see Allan Fotheringham (p.14) and Mark “off the wall” Steyn (p.60). While Fotheringham makes some valid points about Ingnatieff’s latest book; Mr. Steyn goes off on a tirade about the tangential subject of a drunken aborigine by the name of Pauchay who, in a drunken stupor, left his child to freeze to death in the snow. Mr. Ignatieff’s “prose style” in commenting on this sad story might be unfortunate, but the appellations “contemptible” and “poseur” is nothing but bombastic vituperation. Mr. Ignatieff could be accused of being stiff, formal or even awkward; but indifferent or a “poseur” he is not.

I know Maclean’s are “broadminded” and try to embrace the breadth and length of the political and social stratum, witness your various critical comments on Stephen Harper; but Steyn has transgressed the limits of tolerance with his boorish rant.


PS. I would have sent a copy of this letter to Mr. Steyn, but his e-mail address does not –for good reason I’m sure –appear in your magazine.

“MOUNTAINS OF YOUTH” –Aaron Wherry, Maclean’s May 11th/09

I have nothing against youth, I was young myself once. However, an error of youth is to believe that intelligence is a substitute for experience; while an error of age is to believe experience is a substitute for intelligence. Mr. Ignatieff would do well to ensure that in his drive to rejuvenate his party and policies, he does not ignore or alienate the older constituency. That would be a mistake.

Pure intelligence will get you only so far, unless it is meshed with “emotional intelligence” and “social intelligence.” People can have a very high IQ but be remarkably weak when it comes to thinking rationally. I don’t for moments suggest that Mr. Ignatieff is not rational –in fact, he might be too rational for many – it can be misinterpreted as arrogance. However, youth worship can also lead to perdition politically, unless he keeps one foot on the throttle and the other on the brakes, and his eyes on the road.

ALLAN FOTHERINGHAM on Michael Ignatiaeff – Maclean’s May 11th issue.

It’s great to see the old warhorse back in your pages. For 27 years he soldiered on at Maclean’s, through some erratic periods of Maclean’s publication. He was the one stalwart I always read, whether I agreed with him or not. In this issue he aims his verbal gun at Michael Ingnatieff –somewhat unfairly, I hasten to say. While I did not and still do not, think that Iggy was the ideal Leader for the Liberals –I would have chosen Bob Rae –I do think he has the smarts to lead the party out of the wilderness. He is a tactician and a strategist –in every way Harpers equal. That said, I do think he needs a makeover. He is still stiff and formal; uses highfalutin language that might go well with the college crowd, but misses the great unwashed masses. As an intellectual, he equals John Ralston Saul, but as a politician, he must learn to smile, not only with his mouth, but also with his eyes. There is a definite disconnect between his lips and his eyes (see p.14). In many ways, he is Dion speaking English.

I have not read his last book, True Patriot Love, nor do I plan to. I have read other writings of his, and he is eloquent, concise and unambiguous in his dissertations. His Empire Lite was only 127 pages, but there are few words wasted. But, writing for the intellectual elite and writing (and speaking) as a politician is polar opposites. A politician’s first duty is being elected, and while brains and intelligence are requirements, cordiality and joviality is a necessary attribution. Dion butchered the Queens English, but so did Chretien. However, he did it with humour and wit, and thus got away with it.

If for no other reason, I won’t read Ingnatieff’s latest paean to Canada because of his 37- page worship of George Monro Grant, and in particular, his uncle, Chicken Little George Parkin Grant. I was made to read Lament for a Nation in University – Political Economy 101 –and I have not yet recovered from that ordeal.

However, one bad book does not exclude him from high office. Hyperbole has always been the crutch of the scoundrel and the successful politician (sometimes in the same person). I see Mr. Ingnatieff firmly as the latter.

Bernie Madoff - The 2009 TIME 100 - TIME

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