St. Paul's byelection part 3

I refuse to take seriously any analysis that comes from people who can't spell Horwath.

Lord Palmerston wrote:

Scott Piatkowski wrote:

I refuse to take seriously any analysis that comes from people who can't spell Horwath.

Just like you can't take seriously any analysis that mistakenly referred to the ONDP '07 slogan as "Go Orange" instead of "Get Orange"?  To hell with the content of what critics of The Party have to say.

Actually, much of the content is full of crap too.

The NDP campaigning agains the HST is bad strategy and is all about short term point scoring agains McGuinty to the detriment of building a public case for the kind of government and the kind of services and supports we want as provessives. Being against the HST is being against taxes - that is how it comes off. The public perceives the the HST is that it is "yet another tax grab" and the NDP is accomplishing nothing positive by playing into that.  

Olly wrote:

The public perceives the the HST is that it is "yet another tax grab" and the NDP is accomplishing nothing positive by playing into that.

 Should the NDP  ignore the HST, then the public  can ignore the NDP.  And yes the HST is a tax grab. If you like it, vote Liberal. 

Yes there is about a two billion shortfall.  Particularly once you factor in the one time payment from the feds of about a billion and half.

Take money away from the poorest in our society and all those families living pay cheque to pay cheque, nickel and dime small businesses on their already thin margins and then hand it over to big corps - while asking- let alone demanding- nothing in return.

If this isn't an issue the NDP should be fighting on I don't know what would be.  It is distressing that people have spent so little time figuring this issue out, but are more than willing to suggest the NDP fighting this is some sort of drive to the right.  It isn't. It is a social justice issue pure and simple.

Uncle John wrote:

In McGuinty's defence, the Ontario government has had to front a lot of cash recently, especially to the auto industry,

1) that is a defence for nothing, including the creation of the HST. Like all other monies the Liberals have fronted Automotive, there are no strings or jobs attached. And no serious payback schedules. A slushfund of corporate welfare is no reason to stick it to the average citizen. If he was serious about Auto, the Ontario Government would own the New Mexican Truck Plant or have trucks continue to built in Oshawa, where they were profitable and award winning.  But thats a separate issue altogehter for another debate.

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to meet the enormous Ontario government's enormous liabilities.

Holy shit Uncle, they are spending money like drunken sailors.  WTF... MILLIONS FOR DOMED SOCCER STADIUMS for PRIVATE SCHOOLS, while the public system goes without. This is the government that gives money to clubs, pals, friends of family. HOW SOON WE FORGET. This is the party of corporate welfare and free markets. If we allow them to take our money, we are ensured to receive little back in return. 

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In addition, the GST cheques for the poor will almost double,

UTTER NONSENSE.  But it is certain that they will pay more and on more items. That is a fact.

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 and income taxes and corporate taxes will go down.

The banks don't need anymore money, and without an industrial policy, a corporate tax cut is just another handout to a company before it leaves. More bad news, more of the same, more of the same problems and same solutions that I keep hearing since 2005. Its not very good.

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Considering most of the money the poor shell out goes to tax-exempt rent, muncipal commercial property taxes (through that rent) and food, it isn't going to affect them much.

You sound so in touch with the working poor. Can I get Harper to offer you a Senate Seat.

Bookish Agrarian wrote:

The HST is a social justice issue.  Under the HST people, ordinary working people and those living on fixed incomes, will be paying more for their rent, their insurance, the heating and a number of other every day items. 

Yes this is a tax grab, but it is a tax grab that will hit those with the least the hardest.  Ignoring that would make the NDP look like a collection of duffi.

But they will get twice as much in GST return, ok, almost twice as much. LOL. Seriously BA. I do agree with  your position.

Lord Palmerston wrote:

We know what the NDP thinks about the HST.  But how are all these promises about improving healthcare, fixing education, restoring cuts, etc. going to be paid for?  That is not clear. 

The Liberal plan is to take from the poor and give to the rich. I don't know, maybe the NDP will take from the rich and give to the poor. LOL. I thought the Healthcare tax, that $900 burden was for improving healthcare. Did I miss something?  Fixing Education. I thought the FUNDING FORMULA did that.  Restoring Cuts... Hmm, gotta tell you, the situation is bad, the Liberals have spent deep and allowed a viable economy to exodus from the Province.  Growing the economy is  a superior plan then shrinking it. The Liberals haven't had a better economic plan other then tax cuts. Unfortuneately this is a government that is very civic oriented and very high society. But economics isn't its strength. Cuts will come.

The question is, do you want Hudak to make those cuts?  No HST is going to alleviate the situation, it could aggravate it, and more importantly, virtually every punter that mentions HST follows it up with Income and Corporate Tax Cuts.

A party is going to have to put the house in order and start governing responsibly.  Sometimes, the first responsible act is to say no to a bad tax that is a job killer.

The Town Crier newspaper where I work, is holding an all-candidates debate for the St. Paul's byelection. It will be Sept. 10 from 7-9 pm at Sunderland Hall at the First Unitarian Congregation of Toronto. You will find it  at 175 St. Clair Ave. West, near the southwest corner of Avenue Rd. and St. Clair.
NDPer Julian Heller has confirmed as has Green Chris Chopik and PC Sue-Ann Levy. I expect Liberal Eric Hoskins will be there as well.
We are looking to formulate the questions to ask the candidates. Any ideas? As well, there will be a portion at the end where the floor is open to questions from the audience. 

another useless byelection...

McGuinty won't back off on new taxes.

We already know that.

The problem with the HST as a byelection strategy is that the Tories are also running a single-issue anti-HST campaign that is higher-profile. Rightly or wrongly. voters already see this as the Tories' issue. And why wouldn't they? The Tories have been louder, more monomaniacal and more facilitated by the media in owning it. So, when we convince people that the most important thing is to "send Dalton McGuinty a wake-up call and say 'no' to the HST," what we are doing is exhorting the voters to cast a Sue-Ann Levy ballot.

Now we can do our best to tar the provincial Tories with this but the reality is that the Flaherty connection is insufficient. If the provincial Tories were backing the HST, divided or silent on it, our strategy would make sense. But unfortunately, they are screaming from the rooftops about it and writing harder-hitting anti-tax propaganda than we are. As a result, we're essentially singing backup to the Conservative campaign.

If we continue to run this byelection on the HST and E-Health, we are basically encouraging people to vote Tory. The implied message in a single-issue anti-HST campaign is "taxes are bad. We need anti-tax MPPs." And the implied message in the E-Health scandal is "government is wasteful and inefficient and is a big black hole for my tax money." Again, reinforcing better-financed, more starkly-stated Tory themes.

I'm not saying that we should support the HST or any other regressive taxes but we need to connect with voters in St. Pauls on issues where the Tories don't. The on-again-off-again public transit developments on Eglinton and McGuinty's sudden delay of the streetcar purchase are one example. Another has to do with the threat of school closures and the under-funding of the TDSB. Nobody is going to trust Tories to fund transit and schools but they do trust Tories to cut taxes and slash programs.

Furthermore, we have a sense of what running against consumption taxes does for the NDP even when they do it right. In the BC provincial election, the NDP owned tax cuts as an issue and were effective in staking out that turf. That delivered some gains in rural BC and produced no change in overall popular vote but, in ridings with a demographic profile like St. Paul's, just check out the defeats in Vancouver-Fairview, Vancouver-False Creek, etc.

From a purely retail politics standpoint, this strategy doesn't make sense. Let's hope the party sees reason in the next two and a half weeks.

But the current NDP campaign does not attack the HST as a regressive, ill-timed tax. It attacks it as a tax increase, as if all taxes are bad. I agree with Stuart - this campaign is off to a poor start.

Why aren't we on the attack every single day, with a new issue every two or three days? Why aren't we attacking the Liberals on Platinex muscling their way onto K.I. lands once more, based on a 100+ year old mining act that the Liberals refuse to update to acknowledge native rights?

I'm biased but I think this may be the issue.

http://www.paulmillermpp.ca/pages/news_090602pensiontour.html

Stockholm wrote:

So far in BC Campbell's introduction of the HST has singlehandedly caused his approval ratings to nosedive and he is now 8% behind the NDP and dropping. Obviously opposing this regressive tax that takes money away from people and gives it to businesses is paying dividends in BC for the NDP so why not try to exploit the issue in Ontario as well. Its usually a good tactic in a byelection to pick a particular issue that is "topical" and make the byelection a bit of a referendum on that issue.

 

This is only true in so far as Gordon Campbell's support has gone down. It's not as if the NDP's support has gone up as a result. So in BC, yeah, the effect would be an NDP government - but in Ontario it would mean what? That the NDP goes from having 10 seats to maybe 15 or so? Maybe with a Progressive Conservative government?

The BC NDP's support hasn't changed from the last election (ETA: depending on the poll though Mustel says it has), it's the BC Liberals support that has dropped (ETA confirmed by all the polls), with most of their former supporters saying they'd vote "Green", "other," or persumably not at all. Besides, it's not as if the HST is the only objection British Columbians have to the Campbell government or even the main one. They face huge ethical questions, amongst others. Should the Ontario NDP make this central to their campaign they'll likely weaken the Liberal vote, but drive most of those voters to the PC's (and BC doesn't have a credible capital-C conservative party so this effect should be even more pronounced in Ontario) or to the Greens. Not that that's a bad thing in ridings where the NDP and Liberals are the two main competitors, but it's not the most effective strategy to grow the NDP vote share at the Liberals expense (obviously a necessity if NDP wants to be a strong third, official opposition or even government one day as they didn't even get 17% last election).

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Also, if you bought all the pro-Campbell propaganda, you might see a carbon tax as "good for the environment".

FYI, Carole James supports the Carbon Tax now. Oh, also, the BC NDP have admitted that while they're trying to stop the HST now, it would be virtually impossible to scrap it if the Liberals insist on introducing it.

Anyways, I generally agree with Stuart Parker on this issue. Opposing the tax is all fine and good, but it shouldn't be done in a "taxes and government are bad" way, which is essentially the Tory position, it should be done in a "this tax is unfair and won't build a better society" way, which is traditionally the social democratic position.

In the meantime, its clear that there is huge political mileage to be reasped by opposing the HST - so why not take advantage of it. Do you think the federal Liberals regret having opposed the GST and then won a gigantic landslide in 1993 - even though they never actually repealed it afterwards?

I don't propose doing what the Liberals did in 1993 and knowingly lying about repealing the GST when they never intended to do so. But if we jump ahead to 2011, if people are rightly pissed off at the Ontario Liberals for bringing in the HST - then the NDP ought to remind people at every opportunity that this was yet another unpopular thing the Liberals did that they deserve to be punished for. Similarly, in the 1999 Ontario election many people were furious with the Harris PCs for the forced amalgamation of Toronto and many of them were encouraged to demonstrate their anger by voting Liberal or NDP - even though it was clear that DEamalgamation was never going to happen and that there was no way to put toothpaste back into a toothpaste tube. 

This is sometimes the problem in the NDP (or at least has been in the past). We keep trying to play by Marquess of Queensberry rules while our opponents play totally ruthless hardball - and then we are surprised when we lose.

Again, this isn't an "anti-tax" issue. It's about fairness - which is what will trip up Conservatives in the coming months.

The HST isn't really tax hike. It's a tax shift. Off of business and onto you. Like the "green shift" but designed to screw people over.

The Tories - sooner or later - will have problems with the facts that they support the "off of business" part and only oppose the "onto you" part.

I think this is about as clear cut an issue as you get for New Democrats.

It raises taxes on ordinary people and leaves the government with LESS money.

I'm hoping Julian Heller gets his signs up soon!