STAND UP FOR..

STAND UP FOR CANADA
A commentary on the Federal Conservative Party
Pre-election 2006 Platform – Now missing a few planks.

By Victor Drummond ©
March 2009

When the Federal Conservative Party was campaigning to be elected in the year 2006 they made great promises in “The Plan” and promoted their slogan: “Stand up for Canada”.

The implication inherent in this slogan being: If you did not vote Conservative in the 2006 federal election you were letting your country down.
For Reference visit: http://www.actionplan.gc.ca./eng/fearture.asp?featureId=18

On the reference document, page 2 is a picture of Stephen Harper superimposed on a message titled:
“The time for accountability has arrived.”

(skip to paragraph 3)

“Everyday Canadians – the hardworking people who pay their taxes and play by the rules – want and deserve a new government that will put the people’s interest ahead of self-interest. And this election provides them with a chance to tell Liberal Ottawa that they have had enough: that they are tired of being forgotten: that it’s finally their turn.”

The promise implied in this fine speech is that by voting the federal Conservative party into power the voter will be: ‘Standing up for a government that will stand up for the rights of Canadians’.

So what happened after a majority of Canadian voters “stood up” for the Conservatives and “Honourable Stephen Harper”, Member of Parliament, (MP) became: “The Right Honourable Stephen Harper” Prime Minister (PM)of Canada.

One of the first opportunities, for the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, to “Stand up for Canadians” arrived when the Honourable Gary Lunn, Conservative MP for the British Columbia riding of Saanich Gulf-Islands, requested a Tax Remission Order (TRO) to revoke unjust taxation imposed on former employees of the recently defunct SDL Optics/JDSU plant in his riding.

True to his promise The Right Honourable Stephen Harper went to bat for those abused employees and spirited a TRO through the House of Commons, had Her Excellency The Governor General for Canada sign the document resulting in the taxes on, phantom income and all related penalties, levied on those specific 44 persons, named in the TRO, revoked.

When this TRO was announced both the Honourable Gary Lunn and The Right Honourable Stephen Harper took a bow and were quoted in the Victoria Times Colonist Newspaper as making the following statements:- (Gary Lunn): “It is not in the best interests of the Government to tax people on money never seen,” and (Stephen Harper) is quoted as stating : the problem is incomprehensible and he promised “We’ll get it fixed.”

Perhaps it came as surprise, to The Right Honourable Prime Minister, when it was brought to his attention that while he was standing up for the rights of 44 unjustly taxed Canadians he had left thousands of other, unjustly taxed, Canadians out of the picture.

When the remaining, thousands of honest, hard-working Canadians who were also victims of the same defective taxable benefit legislation, heard how Canada’s new prime minister had stood up for the rights of those 44 SDL Optics/JDSU employees, and heard about his remark: “We’ll get it fixed” they understandably thought it would only be a very short time before their tax on phantom income would also be revoked.

Time went by without so much as a whisper from The Right Honourable Stephen Harper to suggest he had taken, or was about to take, any further steps to stand up for those who were also victims of the same defective legislation.

Was he now putting: “the people’s interest ahead of self-interest.” Or was it now the other way around?

In fact, now, a year or so later, these victims are now finding they are still burdened with the same unfair tax and adding insult to injury are discriminated against and denied equal treatment under the law.

Is this the best “fix” the Right Honourable Stephen Harper can provide when he stands up for those who stood up for him?

By the fall of 2008 the polls indicated the federal conservative party was in a favourable position to win a majority of the 308 House of Commons (HOC) seats if an election were to be held at that time.

The party spin doctors encouraged The Right Honourable Stephen Harper to call upon the Governor General to dissolve Canada’s Parliament and initiate the second federal election within a two year period.

Presumable these are the same political strategy advisors that had no more political savvy than to alienate many Canadian voters with the "poopin puffin" personal attack video against the Liberal Party Leader Stephan Dion.

Going into the October 14th 2008 election the Federal Conservative Party fully expected to win at least 155 of the HOC giving them their long sought majority in Canada’s parliament.

The election outcome wasn’t quite the success hoped for. In spite of the federal opposition parties lacking any real election platform above the vindictive slogan, “Anyone but Harper”, they still garnered enough HOC seats to deny the Conservative party the majority they sought.

Those Canadians, who still felt it worth their while to vote, elected 143 conservatives to the HOC. This was the lowest voter participation in any federal election for the past forty years. Why?

There are several good reasons why Canadians did not feel inspired to participate in the October 14th 2008 federal Election:

(1) Not one federal political party had made a commitment to improve the living conditions for the typical Canadian voter.
(2) People, myself included, were turned off by personal attack ads and “Anyone but Harper”, slogans. What kind of vendetta seeking idiots do the political party leaders think we are?
(3) The Conservative Party, and The Right Honourable Stephen Harper had failed to “Stand up for honest hard-working Canadians” and keep his promise to “fix” the phantom tax problem.

Just making a further commitment to fulfill that promise would likely have given the conservatives all the additional elected members to the HOC needed to achieve a majority government.

I have not a doubt in the world that had “The Right Honourable Stephen Harper” made even a token attempt to keep his word in this matter the chances of achieving a majority government would have been greatly improved. And had he succeeded in fixing the phantom tax problem I would have personally campaigned to get the Conservatives all the votes I could.

With thousands of voting age Canadians finally realizing fair and just taxation after eight years of financial distress and anxiety do you suppose the political party, that finally delivered fair taxation for all Canadians, would end up by forming a minority government? Not very likely.

Having barely survived the threat of a coalition government in January 2009,the federal Conservative Party is once more priming the pumps in preparation for another inevitable federal election.

This time they have generated “THE PLAN”.
Ref:- http://www.actionplan.gc.ca/eng/feature.asp?featureId=18

Once again the Harper Government is listing “the tax system” as the top item to be addressed if they once again are given the opportunity to form Canada’s Government.

Let me offer the federal Conservative Party spin doctors a bit of valuable advice.

(1) Do not launch any personal attacks on any opposition party leader(s). Personal attacks are always counter productive. If you can not offer the Canadian voter real issues to vote for then save you pre-election campaign dollars.

(2) If you wish to level the playing field for all individual Canadian taxpayers then commit to correcting Canada’s defective taxable benefit legislation and fairly compensating those already victimized by it. The problem became evident in the year 2001 and the “fix” needs to retroactive to that year.

If the leader of the Federal Conservative Party can not “Stand up for Canadians” by keeping his word, to “fix” this problem then do not look for any of those victimized to stand up for him, or the party he leads.

The first federal political party leader who commits to correcting Canada’s defective taxable benefit legislation and fairly compensating those victimized by it will get my personal support and all the outside support I can muster. And that is a promise you can take to the bank.

Any reader of this blog, who wishes to see Canadian Taxpayers treated fairly, can visit web page:- http://www.yayacanada.com/MPs.html

Look up the e-mail address of your MP and send him/her a message in support of “Canadians for Fair and Equitable Taxation (CFET) Ref:- www.cfet.ca

See you at the next federal election polls O’Grady.
(See earlier blog postings for O’Grady)

Victor Drummond ©