Ban Campaign Promises and other Electoral Rants

Campaign promises. What are they good for. Absolutely nothing.

I wish we could get rid of campaign promises. If you are in government then a campaign promise is just something you think you should have done that you did not do. Maybe it is best not to remind the voters of that, especially if you have made the same promise election after election without delivering. Governing parties should run on their records.

If you are in opposition then campaign promises are wishful thinking. Once elected into government you might discover just how difficult implementing them might be, or worse yet that they really are a bad idea. Nothing politically good can come from breaking promises even when it is the right thing to do.

But the main thing about campaign promises is that they have become part of what has become elections as marketing and voting as shopping where the best candidate doesn’t win but the best marketing campaign does.

Sometimes I think would be better of without election campaigns. Just have all the candidates write essays (no ghost writing allowed) about the type of Canada they want and what they believe to be the best way to achieve that.

After all is not the idea of representative government to elect representatives we trust to take the time to study the issues and develop the best solutions to make the country a better place.

How well are we served by a process where all Members of Parliament do is vote the party line and implement predetermined polices rather than working together to develop the best policies for the country.

I actually remember a time when local all candidates debates mattered. How well served are we by election campaigns where the only people that count are the party leaders, and constitutional niceties aside, voters act is if they are voting for a President, not Members of Parliament.

The Carbon Tax - A Lost Liberal Opportunity

A carbon tax is a good idea, if done properly. The Liberal Carbon Tax Plan is a bad idea for a number of reasons. The carbon tax plan adds another regressive consumption tax to the tax system while reducing the amount collected from individuals and corporations through the progressive income tax system.

According to the Liberal Party brochure “Liberals will cut personal and corporate taxes by billions of dollars a year. “

The brochure also states “Liberals will tax pollution in Canada for the first time by putting a price on Greenhouse Gas emissions that cause climate change and fuels like coal and natural gas.”

This amounts to a consumption tax on goods produced, relative to the amount of greenhouse gases created in their production. It adds a cost of pollution to the cost of production. That is a good thing. But it does it by adding a new consumption tax and making the overall tax system less progressive.

The irony of that is the lost opportunity for the Liberal to actually live up to their abandoned campaign promise to abolish the Goods and Services Tax (GST). To be more precise, the Liberals promised to replace the GST, but apparently were unable to find a suitable replacement. Well here it is folks.

Replacing the GST with a carbon tax would provide a huge incentive for corporations and business to provide goods and services in a more environmentally sustainable fashion. It is such a simple idea, one would have thought that even the Liberals could have thought of it.

But there is another major flaw in the Liberals plan. The liberals state that the new carbon tax “won’t include any extra tax on gasoline at the pump”. What does this mean. The message given by that statement is that gasoline (and diesel fuel) prices will not rise as a result of the carbon tax. If that is so the plan completely misses the point.

Greenhouse gases from transportation fuels are a major, if not the most important part, of the problem. The fact that we transport goods that could be produced locally thousands of miles, adding megatonnes of pollution and greenhouse gases to the environment is an environmental crime against humanity.

Ironically at a time when our local manufacturing industries are suffering, the Liberal policy specifically excludes a measure that would provide enormous reductions in environmental pollution and greenhouse gas emissions while providing thousands of jobs in local communities.

But “The Green Shift” is a nice slogan, even if they did have to steal it from someone.