Flaherty pants on fire

#cdnpoli

Back office, my ass.

 

This is not a "back office" operation. This is a federal laboratory that has evolved since 1916. It's mandate, explained on this page (for as long as it lasts):

The Centre for Plant Health provides testing, virus indexing, therapy, and technology development for viruses and pests of grapevines, treefruits and other crops.

With key research areas of:

• Plant introduction and post-entry quarantine testing of all imported tree fruit, grapes, and woody ornamentals that are not accompanied by an acceptable certificate of good health from the exporting country
• Testing promising selections from Canadian tree fruit and grape breeders to ensure that original releases to industry are free from potential viruses
• Eliminating virus infections from valuable fruit, grape and ornamental clones by heat therapy
• Auditing the reliability of recognized foreign certification programs by testing plant samples from imported commercial shipments for virus infection

It is also the only post-entry quarantine lab in the country for imported plant species. It was tasked with preventing the introduction and spread of plant virus to and to detect forest invasive insect species.

It was the only one in the country.

Gone.

Flaherty and Harper: Taking the "good" out of government.

------
It will be worth watching to see what happens to this facility and the large area of land it occupies. You see, once a very rural stretch of the Saanich Peninsula, the Centre for Plant Health is located in one of the wealthiest sections of Greater Victoria and in the federal riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands. It is bounded by expensive homes to the west (Dean Park Estates) and to the south.

Ringing a few bells?

This was the riding of Harper flunky, Gary Lunn, who's 2008 election campaign remains a source of suspicion.

Conservatives don't do precision ... unless they're working on a voters list

Harper finance minister Jim Flaherty, announced that we will finally be hearing how he plans to manage the nations finances.(Emphasis mine)

The federal budget will be delivered on March 29, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced Wednesday, but it won't contain all the details of the government's planned spending cuts.

All government departments were asked over the last year to find savings amounting to between five and 10 per cent of their budgets, with the ultimate goal of cutting $4 billion in spending annually.

Flaherty told reporters the results of the spending review won't be laid out in detail in the budget.

Why not?

Flaherty can run his own personal finances any way he wants, but he's talking about your money.  Accountants from Beaver Creek to Blackhead are gasping in horror.

For a political party which trumpets themselves as financial and economic wizards, this looks like either a shoddy piece of work or an attempt to paint over rust. A budget full of platitudes is little more than BS. The result is that nobody, (unless you're a member of the Harper elite), can plan anything.

Do you want to be able to plan out your fiscal year for a small business, non-profit, charity or the like? You won't be able to because you'll have no idea where you fit into the financial ministrations of the Flaherty fantasy.

Would you like to plan your retirement finances in detail? You won't be able to because you'll have no idea where you sit and future planning will become impossible.

Harper and Flaherty are going to blind-side you.

They don't do precision. Not for you anyway. But they look after themselves with an obsessive exactitude.

Flaherty. An idea a minute.

It's just that we can't keep up to his ever changing timepiece.

Last June, the provincial and federal governments said they would look at a three-pronged reform: financial literacy, regulatory changes to give the private sector more freedom to offer low-cost savings options and gradually enhancing the CPP.

What Flaherty has done is to shift to the Bush model which was skewered by his own party and eventually died. The problem then is that most people were understandably skeptical of how it was being communicated and the fact that a complete moron was pushing the idea. 

That's a similar problem here. Flaherty is certainly no genius and we can easily suggest that he's "economics challenged". This is the same idiot who told us, in the slide to the financial fire-pit, that we weren't in a recession when the CPP Reserve Fund had already demonstrated a negative return in March of 2008.

So what caused Flaherty to shift from a widening of CPP to his "radical new idea", (borrowed from the worst presidential administration the US has ever known)? 

Same reason as Bush had for wanting to get out from under it. Exactly the same reason. The Harper government has incurred the most massive deficit in Canadian history and they borrowed against the Canada Pension Plan Reserve Fund. The same time that they incurred an enormous deficit the Canada Pension Plan suffered a negative return on investment of -19 percent losing 17 billion dollars in Net Asset Value in one year. 

In short, to keep CPP viable and on track with its current growth targets Flaherty and Harper would have to raise premiums and taxes. That would shatter their already tenuous base. Believe me, Flaherty will screw an entire generation of retirees if it means he can keep his job. 

Harper and Flaherty. The worst financial managers the Canadian government has ever encountered.

*******

Impolitical has more questions and a copy of the surprisingly sparse framework on pension changes Flaherty is proposing.

Harper's refugee from the Mike Harris disaster speaks

And he did it in the wrong place. As Impolitical makes clear, the audience, The Canadian Club of Toronto, is there to hear facts. Hell, they're willing to listen to a point of view. But they do not gather to hear the trial run of an election campaign.

Canadian Club veterans muttered about the bad manners shown in using their meeting as a venue for an assault on the opposition parties, noting with disapproval that Mr. Flaherty had urged his opponents to “rise above petty politics” before putting the boots to them.

What do you expect from a two-bit ambulance chaser; a Mike Harris refugee? This is not a principled individual who would respect the platform he had been offered. This is a Harper puppet. He will abuse anything, everything and everyone to achieve whatever it is he wants to achieve. The one business that he does not consider relevant is the truth. Ever.

Flaherty sirened on about how the Liberal, the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois are somehow already aligned in a coalition ready to govern with all the policies of each party becoming a national policy package.

Except there is no coalition. It is as imaginary as the porn the frat boys in Harper's office consume.

Flaherty however, knows a different reality. His government is a coalition. It exists from bill to bill. The Harper conservatives have survived by garnering the support of the "socialists" on any given bill. They have welcomed the "separatists" to support a budget bill. They are themselves a coalition of real Tories, religious nut-cases, Alberta oil-patch reformers and political refugees from the vandalism foisted on Ontario by Mike Harris.

When Flaherty yaps on about how a coalition would raise taxes we have to look no further than his own actions. Against all advice he lowered the GST and cancelled income tax reductions. That left you seriously out of pocket and increased disposable income to the wealthy. You would pay less on items you cannot afford but Stevie and Jim still get a huge chunk of what you earn before you can spend it anyway.

The man is socially and politically deficient. He tells us that an election would hurt any economic recovery.

How?

He has handed us the largest fiscal deficit this country has ever recorded. At the same time these goofs run off and spend money on mega-conferences like there is no tomorrow. Do they demonstrate austerity? No ... they go the other way!

What Flaherty did is to tell The Canadian Club that democracy is a bad thing. It interferes with his agenda. The one that is propped up by a socialist, separatist, reform, religious and tory coalition.

And if there is any hint that the coalition will fail, he and Harper just run to their bought and paid-for Governor General and have the doors of Parliament barred.

Imagine how this little tyrant would behave if the roadblocks were removed.

Flathead speaks . . .

The man who has never been right about anything...

Is wrong again.

"I'm familiar with the budget for security," Flaherty told reporters in Toronto.

Well, good. You were also familiar with a global economy swirling the drain and denied it was ever happening. Until it took the final plunge.

"Canada's playing an important role and it's one worth playing from time to time," Flaherty said.

What part would that be?

Is it the part about Canada being vilified as a global pariah and world-class reneger on greenhouse gas emissions? Or is the importance of our role associated with continuing to peddle the disgraced Bush administration policies on maternal health care, which are more in line with the whispers in Harper's ear from a charlatan religious profiteer than with the rest of the world?

"In today's international environment unfortunately, it's necessary to spend substantially on security. It's Canada's turn. Either we don't take our turn or we pay the appropriate amount necessary so that everyone is safe."

It is? This is the big conservative "safety play"? All us grown-ups will keep the double-double crowd safe from the boogie men.? Is that what this is?!

Is that why you are holding it in a place almost impossible to secure? Or, to do so means a virtual police lock-down and a trammeling of freedom?

Tell us more about what it means to keep people safe, Big Jim. Sit us down beside the fire and tell us how this is all about safety. Tell us how sound money management should not stand in the way of safety. Tell us why a long-gun registry is such a bad idea in terms of safety and over a billion dollars for security alone makes sense.

Go ahead and justify, you slimy little ambulance chaser, on the basis of safety.

Safety for whom?

Brace yourself. Here comes a federal carbon tax...

The signs are certainly there. Harper is saying he won't rule it out and Flaherty is telling us there won't be any tax cuts. The combination of the two should cause more than a few ears to perk up, especially since this pair is responsible for delivering politically delicious and fiscally irresponsible tax cuts in the face of a recession which has led to a ballooning federal deficit, the likes of which hasn't been seen since days of Brian Mulroney.

Real economists disagree with the Harper/Flaherty fairy-tale approach to eliminating the deficit in "four or five years".

At the risk of digressing a bit, Harper and Flaherty have suggested that the deficit will be eliminated through strengthened economic growth. In short, if the economy grows at a regular level over the next 1/2 decade and federal spending is locked at 2009 or earlier levels, the growth-induced increased tax revenue will eliminate the visible fiscal deficit.

In order for the Harper/Flaherty whimsical method of tackling a deficit to actually work the economy would have to remain rock-solid stable, with a predictable rate of growth, for at least five years with absolutely no financial interruptions - at all. Previous Canadian governments have learned the hard way that such a process almost never works.

As a result, we were handed the GST - by a Conservative government. Subsequent Liberal governments, despite large promises to eliminate the much-despised consumer tax, learned quickly that it would put federal financing in jeopardy, particularly if the economy went sour.

Even an incompetent like Harper knows he can't sustain diversified Canadian economic growth for five straight years without some kind of event kicking his ideas in the crotch. He cannot raise the GST, for purely personal reasons. His particular and obvious personality disorder will not allow it. It would amount to the admission of an error and Harper is simply not capable of that.

However, as Harper flings us headlong down the path of an environmentally devastating bitumen-based economy, a new consumer tax, disguised as a carbon tax, (which will be spun as revenue neutral and not imposed on exports), is more than a little likely. As much as it would become little more than yet another domestic consumer "fuel tax", it would be falsely sold as an environmental initiative which will do nothing to encourage the development of clean, renewable and available sources of energy. It would however, serve to rebuild a crippled revenue stream which Harper and Flaherty previously throttled with their thoughtless dogma.

The point here, is the way Harper and Flaherty are speaking. We've seen this before. And, as virtually all psychologists will point out, when you're dealing with sociopaths like Harper and Flaherty, the best indicator of future behaviour is past behaviour.

And with these two, there is a distinct pattern.

Mentarch lays it out perfectly. It is a "must read".

Flaherty's lips are moving...

... Again.

The only problem with this report:

The federal government isn't reviewing the assets this year of the department that oversees the CBC, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Tuesday, amid media reports that an auction of the the public broadcaster and other Crown corporations is in the offing.

... is that it's Flaherty saying it.

This from a finance minister who has been wrong about everything, couldn't forecast today's lunch money and, quite frankly, lies.

Proof? Write Income Trust on the board 50 times.

If you spend $10,000... Flaherty will give you coffee money. CORRECTED

Updated and corrected below:

First, re-read the CBC item reporting Flaherty's much touted home renovation tax credit scheme.

A home renovation tax credit would give up to $1,350 in tax relief on home improvement projects. Eligible expenses would have to total at least $1,000, but not more than $10,000, and the work would have to be done between Jan. 27, 2009, and Feb. 1, 2010.

Tax credit... not Tax Refund.

Now read this.

A quick number crunch. If you spend a full $10,000 on home renovations... in the specified 12 month period... (that means NOW!)... you will get a non-refundable tax credit (not a refund) which means you might reduce your annual income tax bill by about $200. (About $16 a month).

If you spend the minimum ($1,000), and hand over your Home Depot receipts to the government, you will reduce the total amount of your annual federal income tax payable by about $20. (About $1.66 a month).

Oh yes... and don't forget... the amounts required to be spent to qualify are before any sales taxes are applied.

Now what have you saved?

May the power of Annette Verschuren be with you.

Personal Safety Violation: The fat little egotist really needs to have someone read him the safety instructions that come with every power tool sold in Canada. As Charles, JimBobby, Sven, Boris and Niles noticed.

MY BAD... Correction: Jim and Aaron in comments point out that I have seriously misread the information in the budget document.

On closer examination, it would appear that they are quite correct. As they point out the calculation, according to the Budget Plan, is the actual amount of eligible expenditures, minus $1,000 then multiplied by 15 percent. The resultant figure would be the actual credit subtracted from federal tax owing. (Checked and verified with TGB accounting dept.)

That's significant and, if it all actually happens as advertised, the actual maximum credit would indeed be the full $1,350.

So, two items: First, an apology to Flaherty for suggesting he was operating from his usual dishonest position.
Second, there were other comments which have disappeared. I didn't disappear them but who knows what destruction haloscan hath wrought? In any case one keyed the words "tax deduction" and it simply isn't that. This program does not reduce a taxpayer's taxable income - it reduces the amount of federal tax payable.

I'll add another comment. You've got to be prepared to spend $10,000 to get the maximum tax credit. Given that people are worried about the stability of their incomes, unless someone had actually scheduled a renovation prior to the announcement of this idea or has a spare bank account sitting around doing nothing the assumption that 4.6 million taxpayers will be able to take advantage in 2009 seems more than a little optimistic. I suspect in this economic environment the idea of carrying out a major renovation on credit isn't viewed as a palatable option by many.

Given that this idea is being handled through income taxes there is a marginal chance that it won't turn into the fiasco that was the now defunct Harper green-automobile rebate program.

In any case, thanks to Jim and Aaron for a sharp tug on the stern-sheets.

They would give you another Walkerton

Via Steve V, Stephane Dion leveled one very clear charge against the Conservatives and their plan to let the Canadian food industry inspect themselves. And he linked the one watershed disaster, Walkerton, with those who slashed government services in Ontario which helped precipitate that event. (Emphasis mine)

A leaked government proposal to give the food industry a greater role in the inspection process is backed by the same Conservative politicians responsible for Ontario's Walkerton water tragedy, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion charged Thursday. [...]

"These are the same people – Mr. Flaherty, Mr. Baird, Mr. Clement – who are responsible [for] what happened in Walkerton, who privatized [Ontario's] propane inspection, and they want to do something equivalent about food inspections, which is at the core of what the government should do," he said.

"This very conservative government does not understand what is at the core of the responsibility of a government in a society."

No they don't. And as the voters of Ontario learned during the Harris years, big tax cuts translate into big cuts in essential services.

More at Impolitical

Stand off at The Woodshed continues...

The Rev. Paperboy is weakening. During the night (east of the International Dateline and west of Greenwich) The Rev. sneaked in a crew and put new vinyl siding on the blog. Yesterday, despite heavy negotiations, The Woodshed continued to be held hostage.

I think with enough pressure we can finish this today. Once we've got The Rev. suitably rummed-up, we can all return to current events... like Brian "With Bells On" Mulroney getting those bells rung for him and crawling back into the sewer system.

Of course, The Rev. is a real "Rev" (has his journeyman preacher ticket) and if he hadn't been holed-up trying to camouflage The Woodshed we could have used him on another mission. It seems Roger Moore dressed up as a conservative Christian minister (they have a uniform?!) and breached the "security" of Ben Stein's piece of "God dun it" drivel.

We need to get The Rev. back on the keyboard. Let's face it, we have Canadian finance minister, Jim "Would I Lie To You" Flaherty, handing out $25 million for the 2010 Olympic torch run. The up side of that is, thanks to Flaherty there will be lots of people with curbside seats. No... they won't have to arrive early to get a good spot. That's where they live.

So, one more day should do it. Save The Rev. from himself.

Flaherty's budget is a snorer.

I agree with Chet. Flaherty's budget is flat. It's also dangerously close to a deficit on the surface and may actually be one now. As was previously pointed out here, Flaherty has been playing with the numbers, noting that selling Crown real-estate and then leasing it back shows revenue in one year and then a 25 year long commitment which is a contingent liability.

Given that Flaherty feels there is a need to further pay down the federal debt, he's given himself next to no wiggle room. If his revenue assumptions fall short, even by a hair's breadth, he's put the country into a deficit position.

The one thing Flaherty seems to be making something of a big deal over is his introduction of a Tax Free Savings Account. It's not a bad idea, but it's hardly worth cheering over.

It is after-tax savings. The contributions, to a limit of $5000 annually, are not tax deferred as for a Registered Retirement Savings Plan. Only the interest on the investment is tax-free. Given the same amount of money placed in RRSP, tax deferred until withdrawn, the RRSP actually makes more money. If you scroll down to the comparison to other investment vehicles in the budget document, the actual funds remaining after taxes is identical. However, most people expect to have a reduced income when they start drawing RRSPs which would mean that the tax advantage is with the RRSP.

There's another issue. How many people actually have $5000 kicking around to store in one of these TFSAs? Most people don't make the maximum allowable RRSP contribution. Unless you have the ability to bank and save that amount of money, this becomes a savings vehicle for a limited number of people and certainly not low-wage earners.

If you were thinking of borrowing some money, banking it in a TFSA and then deducting the loan interest on income taxes, that has been covered too. It's not allowed.

Oh yes, it doesn't start until after 2008. As I said, it's not a bad idea, but it remains to be seen how many Canadians will be able to take advantage of it.

If you have been claiming non-prescription vitamins as a medical expense on your income taxes (and have been in a tugging match with Canada Revenue Agency) you can stop doing it, even if you won a court case on the issue. Despite the argument that taking vitamins reduces your dependency on the medical system, Flaherty is having none of it.

Budget 2008 therefore proposes to clarify the wording for eligible drugs and medications to ensure that those that may be purchased without a prescription remain ineligible.

Overall, Flaherty has taken the federal government right to the horizon of a deficit without a buffer and without a rainy day fund.

The real problem, of course, is that Flaherty cannot be trusted. When a member of the Ontario government he lied and deliberately hid a $6 billion deficit.

So don't let this thing put you to sleep. Given Flaherty's track record, there's a good chance we'll be facing a significant deficit before he ever gets a chance to produce another one.

Following in the footsteps of failure.

It's bad enough that we have Canadian Defence Minister Peter MacKay channeling disgraced former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld right down to using the same approach of intentionally insulting anyone who questions a dubious war. It's worse, however, that the Conservatives keep aping the words and policy ambitions of one of the worst US presidential administrations in history.

BCer in TO picked this one out the swill and it's not only disgusting, but even a banker disagrees with the premise put forward by Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. (Emphasis mine)

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty raised the prospect yesterday of cutting income taxes for high-paid workers to keep them in Canada.

The man who has often been described as the populist Finance Minister suggested that it would not be an easy thing for politicians to do. But he said banks and other companies are being lobbied by foreign governments to move chunks of their operations to jurisdictions with better income-tax rates.

"We need to do more on the personal income-tax side because we still have marginal rates that are disproportionately high when I look at our competition," Mr. Flaherty told reporters in Oshawa. "And one of the things that politically is more difficult to do but it still needs to be done and that is in the higher earning categories between $100,000 and $200,000 a year in income."

Well, isn't that special. His concern is a category that pays federal tax at a rate of either 26% or 29%.

"Our competition"? Who's that? Flaherty didn't bother to provide an example which suggests it is a statement he intentionally pulled right out of his ass.

The most obvious "competition" would be the United States. So, making that obvious assumption let's look at the US federal tax rates for that general income category.

Hmmm... the US has six tax brackets as opposed to Canada's four. For the category of someone earning $100,000 annually the federal tax rate is 28% - 2 percent higher than that same wage earner in Canada.

For someone earning $200,000 annually in the US the federal tax rate is 33% - 4 percent higher than the equivalent Canadian. Keep in mind that in all categories, Canadians receive universal health care from taxes. Americans must either negotiate it as an "employer-pay" benefit or pay for it out of their income.

So, which jurisdiction precisely is it that Flaherty considers "competition"? France? I think not. Germany? Hardly. Maybe, Britain? Well, no, since British income tax is higher at the wage level described by Flaherty but much lower at the low and middle income brackets. It would appear that Canadian federal tax rates at the wage levels described by Flaherty are already some of the lowest in the developed world.

That would mean Flaherty is tossing out a deliberate falsehood since he neither identified nor described the "competition". Not that I'm calling Flaherty a liar, although I'm fairly certain he would have serious difficulty defending himself against such a charge, but he is being highly deceptive.

It seems the US Republican advisors hired by the Harperites are feeding the Canadian Conservative Party the same line of crap they feed the Bush administration. And Flaherty is more than happy to regurgitate the Bush administration line that top-end tax cuts will fuel the economy and provide jobs. Given the state of the US economy, that doesn't seem to have worked quite the way Bush, Greenspan and Paulson had hoped.

Even a leading banker doesn't believe that cutting taxes for top wage earners is as important as cutting taxes at the lower end of the wage scale.

Don Drummond, chief economist of Toronto-Dominion Bank, joked that he "would never want to dissuade anyone from providing tax relief to bankers. That is a great idea that should be supported by all Canadians."

But, he said, "if it's marginal personal income tax rates one is concerned about, the gaze should fall at lower income levels. There we truly have impaired the incentives to work, save and invest, because once various benefits are clawed back, individuals and particularly families keep very little from that last dollar earned."

Chief economist of a Canadian chartered bank. Believes Flaherty has it wrong. Disagrees with major think tank.

William Robson, president of the C. D. Howe Institute, believes tax cuts at the top end of the income scale are a good thing. "We are a high-tax jurisdiction for the people in the $150,000 range," he said.

And the reason Drummond can make a statement which flies in the face of Flaherty's assessment and the repetitive whine of the C.D. Howe Institute is because both Flaherty and the C.D. Howe Institute are full of shit.

Deja Vu. We've had this tax cut before. Updated

OK, I've been asked if I am going to comment on the economic update/mini-budget/cynical vote-buying event produced by Flaherty.

My immediate reaction to the question is to say, "No." However, there are a couple of points which I'll make quickly.

First, the income tax cuts announced by Flaherty are virtually the same ones we had before the Conservatives came to power. Rational Reasons has expressed, just about perfectly, all I could say on the matter.

Secondly, (and I am not going to take a lot of time or space to spell this out), cutting the GST another point to make it a 5 percent consumption tax is just about the dumbest and most unfair way to lower taxes I can think of.

The GST is a progressive proportional tax. Those spending the most money pay the most tax. It's cheap to collect and it's virtually self-policing. Anybody with a reasoning mind can see that a value-added sales tax makes eminently more sense than the alternative: regressive income taxes.

By announcing that the GST will be reduced on January 1st, 2008, Flaherty has probably done some not-so-insignificant economic damage to small business in this country as consumers wait until after Christmas to make big-ticket purchases. But then, no one ever accused Flaherty of being very bright.

Notwithstanding that, Flaherty could have seriously slashed income taxes, left the GST alone, increased the basic personal exemption much more significantly and instituted a guaranteed minimum income.

He could have made taxation fairer. Instead he pandered to the base instincts of those who don't and won't understand which taxes hurt them the most.


Update: The Wingnuterer weighs in. Thanks Zorpheous!

Flaherty ignores his clay-footed hero

That being one, Milton Freedman.

I agree with Devin. Flaherty today called a press conference and announced absolutely nothing.

His meeting with distributors and retailers was nothing but a sham. In fact, it was one of the worst attempts at political optics I have seen in a long time.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said distributors and retailers should lower prices "as soon as possible" to reflect a soaring Canadian dollar, and held up a copy of the latest Harry Potter book as an example of how some items are still much cheaper in the U.S.

Flaherty's comments followed what he called a "frank and open discussion" with industry members Tuesday.

What a lying, disingenuous little shit.

Let's clear this up. Flaherty was given a clinic in retail sales in this country. The retailers and distributors in this country spelled it out for him in clear terms: in order to make a living in this country they have to add value to their product - which they buy from somebody else.

And did Flaherty stand next to a refrigerator to announce his non-announcement?

No, He held up a copy of a Harry Potter book.

This is pure pandering. Flaherty is an adherent of the Chicago School of unleashed capitalism. The only reason he ever entertained the idea of meeting with the Canadian business community is because his own mouth-breathing conservative base believes that if the Canadian dollar suddenly finds par with the US dollar, prices should instantaneously shift in favour of the Canadian consumer.

Flaherty knows that can't happen and his meeting, and subsequent press conference was intended to give his conservative followers a feeling that he's looking after their interests.

In truth, he couldn't care less and he plans to do exactly what he announced - nothing.

These guys do lousy government but, damn, they're beating everybody on theatrics.

Steve took away some of Flaherty's toys

The vice-chair of the Canadian Cabinet Treasury Board committee has been the traditional position of the Minister of Finance. In the case of today, that would be Jim Flaherty.

Until now.

As Cathie points out, buried deep in the press release issued for this week's cabinet shuffle, something most reporters missed, was Flaherty being bounced out of that position.

How are those ecoAuto rebates working out for you Flaherty?

Flaherty's E85 vehicle inclusion smells slightly rotten

Steve has picked up the G&M article which points out that Flaherty favoured vehicles manufactured in the General Motors plant next to his riding by making last minute changes to the budget. The Finance Department, not the Transport Ministry, included two E85 flexible-fuel vehicles (FFVs) manufactured at the Oshawa GM plant, even though the 85 percent ethanol fuel is not available in most of Canada and the fuel consumption ratings of both cars is far too high to qualify under the "feebate" program in Flaherty's budget.

Government officials privately confirmed that as recently as one week before last Monday's federal budget was finalized, the rebates for fuel-efficient cars did not include vehicles with engines capable of running on E85, a gasoline made up of 85 per cent ethanol.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Globe and Mail that the Finance Department, rather than departments with policy expertise in the area, added two E85 vehicles in the final days.

The two six-cylinder vehicles, the Chevrolet Impala and the Monte Carlo, are produced at the GM plant in Oshawa, a riding narrowly won by the Conservatives in the past two elections. The plant is minutes away from Mr. Flaherty's riding of Whitby-Oshawa, where the local economy is closely linked to the GM plant, with many residents employed at GM or in spin-off jobs tied to the plant.

That's pretty typical conservative politics, although I would say a little blatant. But there's more around this issue.

The budget said that vehicles running on E85 meet the standards required to qualify for $1,000 rebates because they emit 40 per cent less greenhouse gases than if they ran on regular fuel.

However, the federal government is not aware of a single gas station in Canada that sells E85 fuel to the public. As a result, Canadians who buy these cars will have to use regular gas, so there will be no improvements to global warming.

OK, there are two things wrong here. First off, the "feebate" program rewards or penalizes the buyer on the purchase of the vehicle; not its use. In the various jurisdictions around the world where that method of incentives and penalties have been applied, they have not worked. (It's called research and we all know how much attention the Conservatives pay to that, don't we O'Connor).

The figure that E85 FFVs emit 40 percent less greenhouse gases than the same vehicle burning regular fuel is patently false. The latest studies show the best case reduces GGH emissions by 25.5 percent. That's not insignificant, but it's a far cry from the 40 percent claim.

There's another problem. Gallon for gallon, litre for litre, mile for mile and KM for KM, E85 burns less efficiently than gasoline. Compared to an equivalent gasoline burning engine, an E85 FFV suffers a 25 percent reduction in volumetric fuel economy. That means the reduction in the gallon for gallon GGH output is reduced because a FFV uses more fuel to travel the same distance as a gasoline powered vehicle. The GGH emission reduction is actually around 13 percent for the same amount of time the engine is operated.

That's not to say that a shift to FFVs and E85 isn't a good move, but to include E85 burning vehicles in the budget's "feebate" program has nothing to do with significant GGH reduction. It's a typical Conservative environmental program, grabbed out of the air without proper consultation and research. The truth is, the two vehicles built near Flaherty's riding, (Chevolet Impala and Monte Carlo) when burning E85 have a combined city/highway fuel consumption rating of 12.3 litres per hundred kilometers. A Saturn Vue (bigger vehicle, smaller engine) has a rating of 8.2 litres per hundred KM. The gasoline burning Saturn Vue actually emits less volume of greenhouse gases per KM than the E85 burning Impala or Monte Carlo.

So, why were E85 vehicles included? It looks good on the surface, but a turn of the page and a working of the figures suggests they belong closer to the other end of the scale. Smoke and mirrors again.

I won't even start with the feedstock problems associated with E85. That's for another time.

Steve labeled it properly. It's Flaherty pork.

The fiscal imbalance myth is put to rest.

I'm not sure whether I should scream or just muss my hair. Having read this, after listening to the little weasel from Whitby-Oshawa shovel money into the voter-pit, it has generated something just short of fury in me.

The Harper Conservatives bought into the Quebec fiscal imbalance myth and then embraced it. Today, we see how much of a fiscal imbalance there really is. Quebec's Charest is promising close to $1 billion in tax cuts to Quebeckers, if re-elected, $700 million of which is coming directly from increased transfer payments.

Quebeckers are the highest taxed provincial population in the country and one might argue that they are entitled to a reduction in provincial taxes. However, they have social programs most provinces would kill to be able to provide and for which they can never find the funding. With a unique and expensive social structure, given what the rest of the provinces are able to do for their citizens, it stands to reason that Quebeckers pay higher provincial taxes.

But now, we're all expected to sit by while Charest promises to reduce taxes and maintain expensive programs. Vue d'ici lays it out well and questions how the rest of Canada will take Charest's use of transfered funds.

I can't help but think there was more than a little collusion between Harper and Charest on this one. Harper needs seats in Quebec if he ever hopes to form a viable majority government. Clearly, he was willing to tax the rest of the country to accomplish his goal and by providing the funds by which Charest could offer a provincial tax cut, he stands his best chance.

The most galling part is Harper's little bag-man suggesting this will end the bickering once and for all. What a bloody idiot.

This more than clearly expresses how we all feel about that.

Harper's equalization formula is stealing from somebody else's rice bowl.

Woman at Mile O has a couple of good posts on Flaherty's purchase of Quebec budget.

One of the articles she linked pointed to a very dangerous element in the new equalization formula worked out by Flaherty and Harper. The federal government is now in the property tax game. Not directly, but in the game nonetheless.

Now, when working out equalization payments, property values within a province will also be a part of the formula to determine levels of transfer. In short, what that means is that even if the economy of a province slumps, but property values take their time decreasing, those inflated housing and land prices will prevent a federal transfer from meeting the program requirements of the province.

David Emerson demonstrated that, not only is he a political piece of pond-scum, but he doesn't have a clue how property taxation actually works.

But Emerson said the new formula for sharing wealth with "have-not" provinces is based on firm principles.

"Everybody in the world knows that high real estate prices translate into de facto wealth, which is taxed by local governments amongst others. So I don't know why that wouldn't be part of the calculation."

WRONG!!!

That illuminates the unbelievable stupidity of David Emerson. Property taxes are based on the value of the property alright, but the levy is based on a mill rate. If the actual tax levy rose with the value of the property in British Columbia, nobody would be able to afford the taxes and local government would be swimming in surplus cash.

There is a process which clearly escapes the self-absorbed minds of David Emerson, Steve Harper and Flaherty. All property is assessed for value, local government sets a budget, the amount of money required is determined, the mill rate is established and taxes are paid based on both the property value and the mill rate.

[BC Premier Gordon] Campbell argued last week that the inclusion of property values would probably deny B.C., which won't receive equalization in 2007-08 thanks to a booming economy, future access the program during an economic slump.

"Anyone that says that your property values are in direct relation of your ability to pay doesn't frankly know a lot about what they're talking about," Campbell said last week.

"The fact of the matter is, property values in British Columbia went up by about 24 per cent last year. Peoples' ability to pay did not go up by 24 per cent last year."

I don't normally agree with much of what Gordon Campbell has to offer, but in this instance, he's dead on.

And now, you have the federal government, quite incorrectly, playing a tax game around property values.

1st take. The Budget Speech (And how ignoring a little beetle is going to be expensive)

Call this splitting hairs if you like.

On second thought, it's not splitting hairs at all. Flaherty had plenty of time to put his budget speech together and he blew it. It goes to the same kind of due diligence and care in choosing words that his colleague in the Department of National Defence exercises.

This country is made up of 10 provinces and three territories - from sea to sea to sea. Unless you believe Jim Flaherty.

... we take pride in the spectacular beauty of our country, and aspire to preserve it.

Well, most of it.

From the majestic peaks of the Rocky Mountains to the rugged shores of Newfoundland and Labrador, many of the most beautiful places on earth are in Canada.

No shit! Getthefuckouttahere! Who knew?! I could have sworn British Columbia joined a confederated Canada in 1871, but maybe my freakin' history teacher got it wrong. And the motto A Mari Usque Ad Mare (From Sea To Sea) must be someplace other than a Canada which includes British Columbia because by Flaherty's definition Canada is A Mons Montis Usque Ad Mare (From Mountains To Sea).
(Click on maps for larger image.)









































Maybe it's just that Flaherty, with limited knowledge of anything west of Winnipeg figures that whenever he's seeing a picture of Vancouver, the pictures in the background must be the Rocky Mountains.

Well, Jimbo, BC has a lot of mountain ranges. The Coast Range, the Cascades, the Cassiars, the Skeenas, the Hazeltons, the Omenicas, the Monashees, the Selkirks, the Purcells, the Columbias and, yes, some portions of the Rockies are actually in BC. And that isn't all of them.


Was it a mistake on Flaherty's part?

How fortunate we are to call this vast, beautiful country our home. We must preserve and protect it.

Apparently not. As the little weasel was shoveling money off the back of a truck trying to secure votes in the rest of the country he didn't bother to even acknowledge the worst natural and economic disaster to hit British Columbia, ever.



THAT is a dead pine forest in the BC southern interior. It's WEST of the Rocky Mountains. Any tree that has even a hint of red in it is dead. That makes it an incredible piece of dry fuel. Worse, it doesn't suck up water during the winter thaw, so you can guess where that goes.


This is a close-up.

British Columbia is poised to lose, completely, its pine forestry. Great swaths of the province are red from entire forests of dying pine trees. All due to the Northern Pine Beetle. Before the Conservatives came to power, they were calling it a disaster of the highest magnitude. Now that they form government, those trees are all on the wrong side of the Rockies.

Aside from providing no funding to cities, Flaherty provided nothing to British Columbia to deal with the devastation caused by pine-beetle killed forests. Not a penny.

Flaherty did provide funding to preserve the Great Bear Rainforest. He probably doesn't know where that is. It's really west of the Rockies. If you look on any map prior to 1995 you won't find it. Before that it was just the temperate rainforest of the central BC coast. Most of the trees are reasonably healthy there. The announcement of $30 million to help preserve the temperate rainforest of the central coast is not new. That amount was announced January 21st.

So, while perusing the budget plan to see if there's anything in there that doesn't look like Flaherty was simply trying to buy votes, BC will once again be able to claim "western alienation" by the federal government. A government made up of a party that arose because of so-called "western alienation".

Since the budget only covers from the Rockies to the Atlantic, the Conservatives can feel free to take their 17 MPs and depart. They were all pretty useless anyway, and BC would probably do a lot better without the likes of Stockwell Day and Betty Hinton.

And while we're at it, and Flaherty is groveling to the government of the Province of British Columbia as they angrily rip him to shreds, he might want to consider what those thousands upon thousands of dead trees are about to cause.

The snow pack in the mountains, all of them, including the western slope of the Rockies, is at 125% above normal. In areas where the forest have been clear cut to get rid of the fire hazard there is no more erosion control and no more shade to regulate the snow melt. It will come down fast and hard. Estimates are that 90% more water will flow to the rivers 20 days earlier than normal. In areas where the trees are still standing, the flood levels are expected to be 60% larger, 14 days earlier than usual. Dead trees don't absorb any water at all so, instead of being a natural diversion of millions of gallons of water, it will simply flow to the rivers, and they will probably top the dikes on the lower Fraser River.

So, Flaherty can ignore BC if he wants to. The province is looking at the "mother of all freshets" in the next eight to ten weeks. So, as the guy with the oil filter said: You can pay me now; or you can pay me later.

Let's hope Flaherty put a whole lot of contingency funding in the bank.