Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

Posted on December 21, 2009 - by J Lane

Legality of HST (reprise)

I had blogged previously about whether the HST can legally exist based on the Canadian Constitution. Seems that a few others have noticed this now too, I just received this e-mail from “Fight HST”:

From: Rustad.MLA, John
Subject: RE: Harmonized Sales Tax
To: “jack kortmeyer” < *redacted*>
Received: Tuesday, December 15, 2009, 2:08 PM

Hi Jack,

This is the response from the Attorney General’s office:

This is from the Ministry of Finance:

The concerns which have been raised that the harmonized sales tax is an unconstitutional delegation of provincial legislative authority reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the tax.

The harmonized sales tax is a federal tax. It is imposed by the federal government under the Excise Tax Act. The constitutional authority for the Excise Tax Act is found in section 91(3) of the Constitution Act, 1867 which provides exclusive legislative authority to the Parliament of Canada for “the raising of money by any mode or system of taxation.”

Under section 92 of the Constitution Act, 1967, the province of British Columbia has exclusive legislative authority for “direct taxation within the province in order to the raising of a revenue for provincial purposes.” This is the constitutional authority for the provincial sales tax imposed under the Social Service Tax Act.

Under harmonization, British Columbia is not delegating its legislative authority for direct taxation to the federal government but agreeing not to exercise that authority in exchange for a share of the federal tax. If British Columbia no longer receives that share of the federal tax there is nothing to prevent British Columbia from again exercising its legislative authority and imposing a provincial sales tax.

Sincerely,

John Rustad, MLA, Nechako-Lakes

From: jack kortmeyer [mailto:*redacted*]
Sent: Tuesday, December 08, 2009 12:02 PM
To: Rustad.MLA, John
Subject: Harmonized Sales Tax

John

On Oct 14 2009 I attended a meeting with local merchants and yourself at the Chamber of Commerce meeting room in Burns Lake . During this meeting I made a brief presentation on my position as to why I felt the Harmonized Sales Tax in its present form is unconstitutional. With my presentation I also provided you with excerpts from the Lord Nelson Hotel Supreme Court Case, the Statute of Westminster 1931, the British North America Act 1867-1982 and even a comment on taxation by W.A.C. Bennett. You mentioned to me at this meeting that you did not know much about this Constitutional topic, however you assured me you would pass my information onto the Attorney General for his opinion, I have not to date received a reply. When may I expect an answer from the Attorney General on this very important Constitutional question?

As a Citizen of Canada and British Columbia I ask you our Member of the Legislative Assembly, the Attorney General and the Premier of British Columbia as elected officials to be absolutely certain my Constitutional Rights are protected on this subject of taxation.

Regards,

Jack Kortmeyer
Decker Lake

That’s interesting, the HST is simply “misunderstood”. I take issue with the idea that “British Columbia is not delegating its legislative authority for direct taxation to the federal government but agreeing not to exercise that authority in exchange for a share of the federal tax”. Is the Constitution not present to lay out the rights of the people, not legislative bodies? This doesn’t just seem like a different interpretation of the constitution, but rather the Government of BC is choosing to give up rights on our behalf. That doesn’t sit right with me.

This example was given in the e-mail from Fight HST:

Vander Zalm explained, “That is like the Feds agreeing to let BC legalize capital punishment by saying they are not delegating their legislative authority for criminal law to the Provincial Government, but agreeing not to exercise that authority in exchange for a share of the revenues saved from executing criminals instead of jailing them.”

It seems a bit extreme, but those parts of the constitution are there to specifically divide the responsibilities of the levels of government. Personally, I don’t think it’s right that provinces and the feds can choose to selectively exercise authority when it suits them. I would home that the courts would agree.

It might sound silly arguing about “our right to be taxed”, but in implementing the HST, the Government of Canada and the Government of BC are creating a very real problem: BC no longer has control over it’s own taxation that is used to fund real things within the province.Under the terms of the agreement, if the federal government should ever decided to stop transfer payments to BC, then BC will have the authority to once again implement their own PST (Hon. John Rustad said so himself in the last paragraph of his e-mail).

So if the federal government runs a little low on cash (I can’t imagine that ever happening!), and they decide to cut the money that they’re generously collecting and then “gifting” back to us, we can expect to enjoy both an HST and a PST in BC. Either there is a formal delegation of authority going on here, which is most likely unconstitutional, or BC is being sold into a very tenuous position where we’re having provincial affairs decided in Ottawa. Scary stuff.

Posted on October 24, 2009 - by J Lane

Flu vaccine: to be or not to be

There’s been a pile of debate about whether or not people should get the flu vaccine.  It’s probably been fuelled by the media’s hype of the “life-threatening” H1N1 strain of the flu virus.  Today, I came across this video via. a friend on twitter:

At one point, the reporter tosses out the stat of a “one in a million” neurological disorder.  That might seem like pretty good odds.  According to the US census bureau, the current population of the US is 304 million — so if everyone in the US got vaccinated, 304 of them would no longer be able to talk or walk normally.  Huh.  It would suck to be one of those 304 just because I wanted to avoid getting the flu.

I’m neither pro nor anti vaccines in general.  There’s no doubt that they’ve contributed to wiping out some absolutely horrifying diseases.  That said, I don’t know whether I’d be willing to gamble the inconvenience of a flu with a one in a million change of having a permanent, life-altering condition.  With our first son, we started out getting him vaccinated on the normal routine.  He had a horrible reaction to the first round though (high fever, listlessness), so we opted to hold off on the next few shots.  He’s all caught up now, as is our younger son, but we waited until they were over the age of 1 to finish it off.  I was talking with my Doctor about it at the time (a really great, practical guy), and he pointed out that we live in Canada where the chances of catching most of the diseases you’re being vaccinated against is pretty low.  He asked if we were planning to travel anywhere in the future (no), and said that we were probably fine.  He did say that there is that risk though (one in a million?)

I pretty much get the flu at some point or another every year.  I never have an easy time of it either.  Am I going to get a flu vaccination?  Nope.  There’s a couple of factors in play in that decision:

1. I work from home, and live on an island of about 1,000 people.  Sure, people come and go from the island every day, and I make trips over to the city on a somewhat regular schedule, but I think my risk of exposure is pretty minimal.  I doubt we’ll see H1N1 make an appearance on Mayne.
2. Coughing, sneezing, and flu symptoms suck, but personally I’m not likely to die from them.  I’m not likely to become permanently impaired from the flu.  I might have a couple of weeks of low productivity (sorry in advance clients, I appreciate your patience).
3. A significant portion of people that get the flu vaccine, end up with the flu.  The way a vaccine works is that it actually hits your immune system with a low dose of the virus being vaccinated against.  Your body then generates it’s own antibodies to deal with future exposures to that virus.  If you’re a bit under the weather, or if the vaccine dose is off a bit, you could end up with an all-out flu from the vaccine.

Posted on September 5, 2009 - by J Lane

Is the PST legal (and can there legally be an HST in BC)?

I’m not a lawyer, but I can read.  Please don’t take this post as formal legal advice or something that is set in stone.  Think of it more as “I’m thinking out loud, and I’d like to hear your thoughts”.

A friend of mine recently shared a link with me on Facebook about whether federal income tax is legal in Canada.  It’s an interesting read, but I think that the argument is wrong.  If you go back to the Canadian Constitution, the sections that this person references say entirely different things from what the author alleges.  For example, section 91 which talks about the Powers of Parliament states:

…it is hereby declared that (notwithstanding anything in this Act) the exclusive Legislative Authority of the Parliament of Canada extends to all Matters coming within the Classes of Subjects next hereinafter enumerated; that is to say,

…

2. The Regulation of Trade and Commerce.

3. The raising of Money by any Mode or System of Taxation.

…

And section 92 which discusses the Powers of Provincial Legislatures says:

In each Province the Legislature may exclusively make Laws in relation to Matters coming within the Classes of Subjects next hereinafter enumerated; that is to say,

…

2. Direct Taxation within the Province in order to the raising of a Revenue for Provincial Purposes.

…

Based off of the generality of point 3 in section 91 and the specificity of point 2 in section 92, I’d wager that it is indeed constitutional for the Government of Canada to collect income tax.  But that took me to the next step in my thinking — based on the Canadian Constitution, provinces are only allowed to collect direct taxes.  Additionally, because the regulation of trade and commerce fall under the federal government’s jurisdiction, shouldn’t any type of sales tax or value added tax only be payable to the Canadian Government?

Another point made in the original article, that I’ve actually been able to verify as true, is that the Supreme Court (case ref [1951] S.C.R. 31, [1950], 4 D.L.R. 369) has ruled that the various levels of government are limited in their ability to transfer their various powers between them.  So it’s not okay for the federal government to just give permission to the provinces to start printing their own currency (as an example).  I’d think that it also wouldn’t be okay for one level of government to assign their tax collection to another level of government, as is proposed by the HST.

I’d love to get some actual legal opinions on this.

Posted on August 15, 2009 - by J Lane

Say no to the HST!

I received an e-mail from Chris Delaney today about the Citizen Initiative to oppose the HST.  Here’s the contents:

SAY NO TO THE HST!

Former B.C. Premier, Bill Vander Zalm,
together with leaders from business, labour and politics,
will speak at a rally to oppose the HST:

Saturday, September 19th

12:00 noon

Vancouver Art Gallery

Mr. Vander Zalm is calling on all British Columbians
to help organize a “Citizen’s Initiative” to rescind the HST.

Details on how you can help will be given out at the rally.

Come and show Gordon Campbell
and the BC Liberals what you think
about their HST!

Please pass this message on to all your friends,
relatives, contacts and associates.

If you’re available to help hand out information and sign up volunteers, please contact chris@chrisdelaney.com with your name, address and phone number.

Posted on August 7, 2009 - by J Lane

What BC needs for leadership

There’s been some great discussion going on here and elsewhere about the HST.  I’ve seen some pretty good traffic on my posts about the HST, and getting involved to oppose the HST with excellent comments left by readers.  As many have pointed out, however, there is a greater issue at play here — trust and credibility.  Gordon Campbell and his party have lost it.

The BC Liberals, in no uncertain terms, stated during the election campaign that they would not be pursuing an HST.  Even their budget did not forecast any increase in taxes.  I understand that things can change in a year, or even six months later, but the HST was very clearly in the works during the election campaign.  I am not aware of some event that can account for the complete reversal of campaign promises in this case.

I have to admit that I didn’t vote for the Campbell government in the first place.  I am one of the 49% of eligible voters that did find their way to the polls on election day, and I cast my vote for the NDP.  It’s not that I actually support the NDP and what they stand for; in fact, during the campaign I was sick of their constant negativity and attack ads doing nothing but talking about how bad things are and everything that the Liberals were doing was leading to the destruction of British Columbia.  They didn’t appear to offer any new ideas, or solutions to many of the issues they were dragging into the spotlight.

It’s one thing to say (from the NDP web site):

“…since the election the premier has backed away from his commitments to protect vital public services like health care and education and is hiding the true state of B.C.’s finances.”

It’s another to offer a plan to actually protect or improve health care and/or education in the face of a recession.  Money is in short supply.  Revenues are down.  What can you do?  You can make cuts, but that could make the situation worse.  Ultimately, you look for the inefficiencies in the system, and fix them.  I realize that this is an extremely simplistic solution for the problem.  I’m not an economist, or an expert in this area.  There are a lot of people who are experts though, why not get them involved?

Others would argue that making cuts to eduction is the worst thing you can do.  Funding education is an investment in the future.  Funding health care is essential (read up on the current debate in the States if you doubt this statement).  What can we do to ensure the long-term viability of these (and other) essential services?

What is the answer?

Ideally, I think we need another alternative here.  I know that BC has more than just two political parties, but in reality, the only real players in the game are the Liberals and the NDP.  The green party is really just the NDP part 2 — great at splitting the vote on the left, but ultimately they’re not bringing much of anything new to the table.  There are a lot of single issue parties out there as well — they drive me nuts.  We the electorate are not going to put you in office so that you can legalize marijuana, or create a constitution for the province.  While the latter may be a long-term solution to some of our problems, we have a number of short term problems that need addressing.  Trying to cram everything into your narrow view of the world isn’t a viable option.

We’re having trouble with voter apathy because there is no party/candidate that captures the heart and the imagination of the voting public.  I almost didn’t vote because I didn’t want any of the alternatives (but that’s shortsighted).  We need somebody who is willing to stand up in this province and acknowledge that there are problems, but to offer actual solutions.  Driving the province deeply in debt to fund massive social programs isn’t the solution. Offloading costs to working people, isn’t a solution either.  It’s easy to show a profit if you’re offloading all of your operating expenses to your customers.  I’ve never understood the draw toward governments having surplus budgets — you’re not trying to make shareholders happy.

Ultimately, however, we need to stop being lied to.  If a political party promises that they are or aren’t going to do something, they need to actually do it (or not).  It’s a massive cop-out to get elected on a platform of lies.  Give us hope, but don’t give us false hope.