Predictions
Seen this movie before?
This being the season of the groundhog, I feel the urge to make a prediction or two.
First: I predict that Boeing will establish a major aircraft manufacturing and maintenance facility on the Powell River airport reserve lands long before automobiles from China arrive via superships to be offloaded on Texada, to be reloaded on barges for distribution to Prince Rupert and Los Angeles [“Directors support deepwater shipping port,” February 2].
Second: I predict that, about this time next year, the Champions of Capitalism will appear before local government asking for more taxpayer dollars in order to complete phase two of the Great Texada Island Super Port Study, and that Texadans will find out only after it has happened.
Chuck Childress
Sanderson Road, Texada Island
Tax cuts unaffordable
Unlike in 2007 when corporate taxes were voted on, Canada is now running a $56-billion deficit and has accumulated more than $200 billion in new debt under Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government [“Candidates differ on spring election,” February 2].
Extra corporate tax cuts will have to be paid for with borrowed money, carrying interest and serving as a mortgage on Canada’s future. These cuts to the richest means there’s less for what families need, like better pensions, health care, education and home care.
The Bank of Canada reported last year Canada’s tax rates were among the most attractive worldwide. Corporate taxes in Canada have been cut by 35 per cent in the past few years and are now the second lowest in the G7, next to the United Kingdom. Our rate is a full 25 per cent below the United States.
The Conservatives are actually increasing taxes. While giving tax breaks to Canada’s largest corporations, Harper is hiking employment insurance payroll taxes, effectively increasing the tax burden for small businesses. Conservatives have got it backwards. They’re increasing job-killing payroll taxes on all employers and employees, while decreasing the corporate tax rate for large corporations.
Conservatives are not cutting the tax rate for small businesses. Their $6-billion tax cut ignores 95 per cent of the 2.2 million active businesses in Canada.
Cutting corporate taxes is not cost-effective. The department of finance has reported that corporate tax cuts are the least efficient short term way to create jobs and drive growth in the economy. Help for infrastructure, housing and for families is far more effective in fostering growth and jobs.
Middle-class families remain under financial pressure. They struggle with household debt and the rising cost of living, family care-giving, saving for retirement, and access to post-secondary education.
These are the priorities Michael Ignatieff’s Liberals are focusing on.
Harper ignores these issues because his priorities are spending billions of tax dollars on untendered fighter jets, billions for prisons we don’t need, hundreds of millions for photo-ops, and tax cuts for the largest corporations.
Is this the Canada we want?
Daniel Veniez, Liberal Party candidate
West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country
