The Elliott Flat Tax: simply who cares?

Re-reading over the praise heaped upon Christine Elliott's recent proposal that she would flatten the tripart Ontario income tax to a set rate of 8% - Kevin Libin called it "unbelievable" since it "does too much to favour the taxpayer and offers no win for our self-interested politicians" (except, of course, allowing the politician at hand to win the PC leadership), Niels Veldhuis stated that "Implementing a ‘flat tax’ would revolutionize Canada’s tax system by removing the current penalty on success", and the Western Standard, with typical vigor for anything suggestive of right-anarchism, called it "just plain sexy" - you would think the leadership contender had learned to levitate a copy of Capitalism and Freedom, thusly proving it a divine composition.

Of course, whether you're a conservative supporter and believe in the flat tax or not - and indeed, I atleast don't find it strikingly insipid in any way - I would hope you know enough to realize that most of the above claims consist of sheer gobledygook, concocted by partisans outlets such as the National Post (our counterpoint to The Toronto Star) that, for all its merits, can be expected to be as objective about such conceits as, say, Sid Ryan would be about Israeli foreign policy.

Take Libin's claim, for example, that, when the Alberta flat tax was implemented, "Low income earners benefited more than anyone when the province" because the "basic personal amount" was raised. This makes sense, if you presume that a) social security is of absolutely no value to anyone whatsoever, and that b) by extension the raising of the basic personal amount by a few thousand dollars has large enough proportional effects on lower-income people to make them the largest beneficiaries of the shift. Of course, the above hardly resembles reality: in actuality, the initial effect in Alberta was most income-earners paid slightly less tax (and by slighty less, I mean by amounts varying from, say, $50 to $700) as a result of the 2001 flat tax - though the siphoning off of billions of dollars worth of government services, which the poor were most dependent on, inevitably made them worse-off than before - until Paul Martin decided to lower federal taxes the following February, at which time most Albertans making below $70,000 discovered they were actually losing money under the current taxation system. As a result of this, the Albertan government panicked and lowered the flat tax by half a percent, thusly causing low and middle-income earners to revert to receiving savings not dissimilar to their stashed-away Canadian Tire money, but the effect was still essentially the same: 25% of the total tax revenue saved as a result of the flat tax's introduction was saved by the wealthiest 1.5% of the population, whilst relative shortfalls dominated the public sector. Oh, and Stockwell Day had a career.

To suggest that the flat tax would remove "the currently penalty on success", as Niels Veldhuis does in his comment in the Financial Post, is equally ludicrous. This is only a matter of simple math: if you made $200,000 under our current provincial tax system, for example, increasing your income by $50,000 would cause you to pay $5580 more, prior to calculating tax credits - hardly enough, by itself, to represent a significant disincentive. However, for those nonetheless seeking solace from the tax-collectors who populate shadowy backrooms, they'll be disappointed to find out that, if Elliott implemented her plan, the difference in tax dollars paid on the same increase would total an "unbelievable" saving of $1580, from $5580 down to a $4000. Wow - if having to pay 3% more on surplus income is enough to cause people to resist earning it, we had better eliminate commodity taxes altogether, lest people begin boycotting chocolate bars, or some such thing.

Other arguments advanced in favour of the flat tax are equally erroneus. Would it be stimulative, causing businesses to "invest in a flat-tax Ontario", or workers to put in "extra hours", as Libin implies? Perhaps, but the argument for initiating tax reform that so directly benefits the rich, when it's basic economic knowledge that lower- and middle-income earners are far more apt to spend their money immediately, and in local and domestic economies, is, at best, shaky. Would it make filing income tax simpler? Not at all: since deductions would still exist, the libertarian pipe-dream of being able to fill out a tax form the size of a postcard would nonetheless go unfulfilled (this is conveniently turned into a virtue in Libin's article, when he brags about tax credits existing for Albertan health clubs). Then, of course, there's the obvious, albeit overlooked problem by the far-right punditry of reduced taxational flexibility: if the tax rate is flattened, the provincial government loses the ability to adjust tax levels on a bracket-by-bracket basis; a valid modus operandi when tempering elusive economic conditions.

I should note, lastly, that by pointing out the flaws in Elliott's flat tax scheme (highlight of Libin's article: the flat tax is analagous to "a politician cutting their own pay" - well, given that the Flaherty family would only stand to benefit; um, no) I'm in no way lobbying broadly against tax relief: indeed, given the economic situation in Ontario, a proposal such as Frank Klees - that is, to grant a four-year tax holiday to post-secondary graduates - or even the retention of Elliott's proposal to raise the basic personal amount, seems amenable. Less amenable is Libin's notion that the "flat-tax-phobia" is anything other than a large mass of voters, simply averse to proposals that don't benefit them, and unfetishized by the floating of the idea. But hey, god forbid the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario have to maintain a tax that's progressive.

Why is Randy Hillier a radical?

Queer-Liberal, normally someone whose blog I read for its inciveness and wit, seems to have gotten carried away recently in his criticisms of Randy Hillier (who, for the uninformed, is an MPP from Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington - that's a mouthful - running for leadership of the PC party): evidently, Hillier's positions consist of "extreme bullshit", he "believes there should probably be no government", and he feels like a "victim" because is a "rural libertarian." This all, I assume because he is a "country bumpkin." Or, if all else fails, simply because he is white.

Call me sensitive because I have a grandmother that once lived in Napanee - best known for Matrix-rocking girl-pop - but this diatribe seems to provoke dissection. So what are Randy Hillier's "extreme" proposals? Well, for the sake of lucidity, I've assembled them here along with my opinions, as well as an explanation of their pros and cons. I hope, for the sake of my yet-unshaped reputation, that you do not find them insufferably "heterosexual" or "white."

1. Allowing competition with the LCBO and Beer Store, and allowing beer and wine to be sold at non-standard retail locations

The first thing that should send off a red light about the Liquor Control Board of Ontario is in its own PR copy: it is, apparently, the "world's largest single purchaser of beverage alcohol products". So Communist China couldn't outdo Ontario in terms of centralized alcohol sale? Apparently not: a brief Google search indicates China sells liquor in grocery stores. Then again, they had foot binding and we had women's temperance, so each to their own plight.

On a more relevant note, though: is the decentralized sale of liquor "extreme", and what would be its implications? Well, according to the "Beverage Alcohol System Review" - a report commissioned by the McGuinty government, then ignored, then conveniently deleted from the province's website - favourable. Infact, that report - put together by radicals like Ann Dumyn, formerly vice-president of Aboriginal and Northern Affairs with SNC-Lavalin Inc. - actually concluded that by utilizing a licensing system, whereby retail licenses could be auctioned off and the number of outlets was controlled to guarantee social responsibility, "the government would preserve the equivalent of its present revenue stream from charges on the commodity and also realize significant additional revenue by auctioning the rights to wholesale and retail beverage alcohol." Additionally, the effect on consumers would be "increased convenience, a more varied selection and competitive prices."

A policy plank that lowered the price of alcohol for consumers - though there would still be a minimum-price policy - increased the diversity and competition in the marketplace (one notes that "The Beer Store" is owned by joint Belgian-American-Canadian-Japanese shareholders, and that nascent Ontario breweries and wineries have had a hard time getting their products sold in provincially-approved retail outlets), and guaranteed the province increased revenue? That's almost as radical as Dalton McGuinty continuing to prop up a provincial monopoly that's the largest single purchaser of beverage alcohol products on the planet. "Almost", I said.

Of course, rational arguments aside, the government of Ontario appears to take its instructions more from organizations less biased than a review panel assembled largely for the purposes of being unbiased, such as the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (the guys who run the Clarke Institute, and whose head of gender program Ray Blanchard referred to trans people as "male gender dysphorics, paedophiles, and fetishists"), the Ontario Public Health Association, and Mothers Against Drunk Driving (the guys who advocated for the 21 year-old drinking age in the U.S. that John McCardell, Jr. called "bad social policy and terrible law"). I cite these organization because they did, actually, influence McGuinty's by submitting a joint response to the panel. No joke.

2. Re-opening the Spring Bear Hunt

Now the extremity really sets in: Randy Hillier wants to authorize the murder of innocent bears. Just ignore, for a moment, that the McGuinty government released a report authored by a Nuisance Bear Committee in November 2003 that concluded the ballooning black bear population posed more of a threat to environmental conservation and rural safety than it had prior to when the Spring Bear Hunt was banned, then proceeded to ignore it, then conveniently deleted the panel's website. Or that a consensus of biologists, outdoor experts, and organizations such as the Canadian Outdoor Heritage Alliance feel the province's ecosystems would be better serviced by re-opening it. Or that approximately $44 million a year was lost to the northern Ontarion economy with the wave of a pen. Or that the barring of the Spring Bear Hunt was never an initiative directed towards solving genuine environmental issues, but rather one advocated by sentimental lobbyists - and apparently ones that had never read an environmental philosophy textbook from back to front, at that - who used a schmaltzy ad campaign deliberately targeted at urban southern Ontarions to achieve their goals. Or that, perhaps most obviously, the bears hunted in northern Ontario - and yes, I know there were problems with cubs being orphaned - were byinlarge treated with far more dignity than the animals kept in kennels prior to their arrival, packaged, at the local grocery store.

If you've managed to ignore the entirety of the above statements extant the first sentence, then you ought to be able to empathize with the McGuinty government, who - as the reader may have noticed - have a tendency to ignore the advice provided to them by review panels for reasons having largely to do with the sentiments (rational or irrational) of the electorate. If not, you will have to hitherto be a pariah reviled for you "extremist bullshit" like Randy Hillier, and your children will probably be ashamed of you.

3. Raising the speed limit

While ol' Randy may not have explained his reasoning for believing the speed limit should be raised very articulately in his campaign materials - indeed, if it's because "Our highways and cars are built to go at a faster speed, so it’s just common sense to have laws that reflect reality" I would hate to see what he thinks gun laws should reflect for people imbued with posable thumbs - he did point out something fairly valid, albeit "extreme" inasmuch as it came from his mouth (or press secretary), which is that, according to the Canadian Automobile Association, 1% of Ontarions abide the existing speed limit. To put this in perspective: 14 percent of adults in Ontario use cannabis, and leftist advocates of legalization cite that high figure as proof its illegality is an imposition many in the province aren't comfortable with.

Now, I don't know Randy's position on legalizing marijuana (though I hear he's a chain-smoker, which might justly explain why he seems to have an aversion to the government - I know vice taxation made many 'a Canadian conservatives, including John A. MacDonald who, according to the CBC, "gave no support" to prohibitionists). What I do know, however, is that a) when the provincial government states that 98% of accidents occur due to "speeding", what they're really referring to is "driving too fast for conditions", a different act altogether than exceeding the speed limit to the point where you could be ticketed, that b) the existing Ontario speed limit is in complete disagreement with the recommendations of almost every traffic engineering report issued in the past 60 years, which uniformly suggest that a speed limit should be adopted that 85% of the population will travel at or below during light traffic and clear weather (Ontarions average 30-50% adherence in said conditions), that c) it's expectable that a large portion of drivers who cause accidents will be in excess of the speed limit when it's deliberately kept irrationally low, and that d) a 1996 study suggested that only 6.7% of accidents in Ontario were specifically related to "speeding" - in contrast with other actions that incur accidents such as following too closely behind another driver, failure to yield right-of-way, inattentive driving, etc.

Money talks, of course, and fifty million dollars in governmental speeding ticket revenue per anum bellows, especially when you're Dalton McGuinty and have chalked up a larger provincial debt than Bob Rae - whose deficit-spending everyone decried because he was in the NDP, and by everyone I mean the Liberal and Conservative-owned media - via the worldwide recession and spending choices characterized by appeasement of special interests (as much as I criticize Harris, atleast he occassionally directed his profaneness towards categorically querulous groups) rather that responsible fiscal management. Of course, Queer-Liberal would probably find the notion of not overspending by billions and billions in order to prevent nasty side-effects like long-term inflation as "bullshit", too, but then again, one plus of the PC party that he's illuminated the public on variously is that it's solely populated by white, heterosexual, mildly xenophobic extremists.

4. Eliminating the OHRT

For a full explanation of my views on this topic, I advise glancing over my previous post, which expressed the opinion that - while I do believe the OHRT's powers should be revised - I differ with the idea that it should be dissolved altogether. That said, suggesting that the OHRT's elimination - even if Hudak or Hiller pursued it - would drastically reduce the rights of minorities is patently ludicrous, since all that it would entail is an integration of the tasks currently performed by the commission into the regular court system, hardly a travesty inasmuch as a human rights complaint should, ideally, be as apt to gain a hearing in a court populated by legal professionals as politically-correct apparatchiks.

5. Altering French Language Services

Sometimes statistics communicate better than lofty explanations:

Percent of British Columbians who natively speak Chinese: 8.5%
Does the provincial government provide language services? No.

Percent of British Columbians who natively speak Punjabi: 4%
Does the provincial government provide language services? No.

Percent of Québecers who natively speak English: 7.9%
Does the provincial government provide language services? Minimally, albeit only because the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guaranteed certain education rights upon its implementation in 1982, and the Supreme Court of Canada overturned Québec laws intended to prevent the long-term existence of it.

Percent of Ontarions who natively speak French: 4.3%
Does the provincial government provide language services? Yes - the "French Language Services Act" was introduced by Bernard Grandmaître in 1986, an MPP in David Peterson's Catholic-dependent government, and extended language rights to Franco-Ontarions that exceeded those granted to Québec's significantly larger Anglophone community, not to mention the demands of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Percent of Ontarions who natively speak Chinese: 3.6%
Does the provincial government provide language services? No.

...So it's fairly clear that the administration of language services in Canada is irrational inasmuch as it preferences the right of English or French native speakers to recieve said services (and, in particular, the right of minority French populations to them), per the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In this context, Randy Hillier's comment on FLS in Ontario - that "I'm sure there are ... other language groups within the province who might like to share the same idea as French-language services" - isn't so much anti-Francophone as it is pro-multicultural. This is a reality that Canadians are going to have to come to terms with: that Canada isn't so much the nation of "two solitudes" defined by John Diefenbaker, but rather one of nonillion solitudes who share in common, at best, a belief in respectful disagreement and an essentialist pantheon of values.

It deserves to be mentioned, as well, that more Liberals than Queer-Liberal (who accused Hillier of trying to have French Services in Ontario "silenced") misconstrued or misrepresented Hillier's comment that "there may be some discussion about that minimum figure" (regarding the requirement of a community to be 5% Francophone to receive FLS funding - and, of course, perhaps lowering it would be rational if it meant services could be afforded for linguistic communities more in need of the funding) as being somehow catastrophic and/or xenophobic: Madame Meillieur, the Liberal MPP in Ontario in charge of handling francophone affairs, retorted after his announcement that "This could lead to a reduction in services in certain areas and raises the danger of assimilation." Okay, sure, but why weren't the Liberals concerned about Chinese-Canadians being assimilated when their population was tallied as 11.4% of Toronto's total? Apparently, feeling that language rights should extend beyond venerated Pearsonian French-English dualism is a key identifying characteristic of "extremist bullshit."

6. Allowing marriage commissioners to choose which couples they will marry and healthcare professional to choose what services they perform

Okay, so I'll finally concede to one Queer-Liberal's criticism of a Hiller-advanced policy, since I possess neither the inclination nor the creativity to defend it: Hillier dropped the ball with this one. Among the foreseeable problems with Hillier's proposed "Freedom of Association & Conscience Act" is that its commitment towards ensuring government employees aren't actually required to adhere to its policies regarding human rights is as presumptuous as forcibly requiring churches to marry homosexuals (if you don't want to, work for an organization that shares your values), that it ignores the fact that it's unfair to require minorities to pay tax dollars for a service that they can be denied in immediacy on the basis of sexual orientation (and yeah, I know Hillier's materials say they'd have to nonetheless provide the service in due time, but it could still potentially be incoveniencing), and that the limitations of the act aren't even properly defined: should teachers, for example, be allowed to switch the classes they're assigned because - hold your breath, folks - they would have to teach a gay student?

What the act amounts, to then, is a legislative proposal ambiguous extant that it feels it is the right of government employees to collect public tax dollars with one hand, and dismiss the obligations of their profession on the other (and uses frequent, somewhat irrelevant references to the need for being "protected" from "human rights commissions" as boogeymen to sway gullible conservatives). "But Hillier is a libertarian", you might say. "He has to support any proposal - probably advanced by him - with the word 'freedom' in it, or even positioned within twenty centimetres of said word on the page." Well, no: my beef with this proposal, by Hillier, is that it selectively applies the principles of libertarianism in a way that constitutes a thinly-veiled singling out of a sole minority. If Hillier were to advance a policy, for example, stating that whilst it's okay for the government to continue business as usual, except blacks can be refused medical services if they're disliked, it would be difficult to equate it with "libertarianism" and easier to associate it with some of campaign manager Tristan Emmanuel's unfortunate comments, which I won't quote here for the purposes of party unity, inasmuch as I have an effect on it.

Overall: 4 1/2 out of 6 - so Hillier may, after all, be an "extremist", but only to the extent that he'd like you to think of him as one, and his apparent extremism is largely indebted to reports written by review panels and shelved by the McGuinty government in an attempt to ensure they don't alienate your grandma. Of course, I was going to say "your grandma and her dog", but then I remembered that Hillier has committed himself to rescinding the Pit Bull ban, which McGuinty implemented. Oh my, I can already see the Liberal ad campaigns: "Randy Hillier—Soft on Dogs."

Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?

Amidst the clamor initiated by "Shakedown" reaching #1 on the Canadian sellers list and the media hooplah that went with it, Tim Hudak's announcement - and one clearly intended to counter Elliott's "Flat Tax" proposal, thusly attracting Hiller supporters on the anticipated second ballot - that he would close the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal if he was victorious in the 2011 election, seemed, in conservatice circles for a pause, almost emancipatory, like the destruction of Szoborpark or the First France Army's retaking of that country. Kudos to dramatic rhetoric, in this regard, goes to media outlets like The Western Standard and politicians like Randy Hiller, who haven't hesitated over the course of the past few months to describe the tribunal's previous activities as being "totalitarian", "anti-semitic", "un-Canadian", etc. And while that's true, to describe what amounts to one or two bureaucratic mistakes (some may feel there's more, though I'm referring more specifically to the attempted censure of free speech) as being equatable with full-scale fascism seems a bit like labelling the mumps a terminal disease, which would be fine extant the fact there's a reason "slippery slope" is a logical fallacy.


So to recap: yeah, the OHRC did some dumb shit. But what of it? Perhaps a sober restating of events is needed: the OHRC has received two speech-related complaints in its entire history. It didn't have the jurisdiction to hear them, so it didn't, although that didn't stop Barbara Hall from publishing a diatribe on the commission's website, which Mark Steyn correctly identified as being essentially a guilty verdict minus due course: "Even though they [the OHRC] don't have the guts to hear the case, they might as well find us guilty. Ingenious!" The response to this was, in large part, for conservatives in the province to begin calling for the removal of the infamous "section 13" from the Canada Human Rights Act and/or the Ontario Human Rights Code, the former of which was given the stamp of approval in 1977 by the then-federal government, before being first used to actually invalidate free speech in a 1979 federal case (hateful, solicited phone calls) by (Liberal) Chief Justice Brian Dixon. So you could say that, to the extent freedom of speech is the subject of conservative disgruntlement, the removal of section 13 would rectify the misapplication of justice in question.


So why, then, does Tim Hudak feel the need to make it more difficult for every person in a wheelchair to file an aggrievance regarding discrimination, instead of simply "tweaking" the OHRC, as Elliott as said she will? Because 99.9% of what the commission has ever dealt with are employment and tenant issues that don't infringe upon free speech rights (take, for example, the right of a black person to attend any restaurant or drinking establishment) - and at present, the sweeping majority of complaints they handle are initiated by the disabled. Hudak should know, assuming that his proposal was spurred by genuine belief and not cynical partisanship, that a simple revision of the powers of the commission would satisfy the demands of Ontarions irked by its draconian treatment of certain issues.


Of course, a Hudakite might respond by pointing out that all cases should be handled by a single court, but this is silly since law is, by definition, a diverse topic whereby whole different sets of regulations apply depending on the strand of it, as well as the party in question (a degree of legislative flexibility, of course, is essential to a moral and functioning society). Moreover, there's the practical reality that the OHRC - which has, byinlarge, helped make Ontario a fairer place since its inception, a few gross abuses aside - doesn't warrant an expensive overhaul and integration of its responsibilities into an already over-burdenered legal system when a few relatively simple changes would have the same effect. Certainly, Hugh Segal - who worked in many of the PC governments in Ontario largely responsible for introducing human rights legislation - was less than impressed with Hudak's proposal: "Human rights commissions can be modernized, made more fair and less bureaucratic," he opined. "But the notion of doing away with them because they're inconvenient or because some human rights commissions have made bad decisions in the past, I think is not the kind of judgment people would expect from somebody who wants to be premier of Ontario."


Christine Elliott is correct, too, that the same McGuinty government too shrewd to allow John Tory an unchallenged seat in the Ontario legislature is also apt to play the "racism" card if Hudak decides to turn this issue into a touchstone of his campaign: "Are we really serious about wanting to win the next election? I know I am," she said in response to his proposal. In a way, her comment speaks more broadly to the amateurishness which has characterized the Hudak campaign, wherein he's allowed his desire to win the leadership outweigh good judgement in terms of what issues are intelligent to introduce into the discourse. The most noteable example of this, early on, was the way he relished in being identified with Mike Harris - hardly the best, or the most resonantly popular, of Ontario's post-war PC premiers, and an easy election-time target for the Liberals - but by fixating on the subject of the HRT, he seems to be only further damaging his credibility.