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Dalton's HST headache (continued)
First there was the $1-billion e-Health scandal, then the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation scandal. And there is the $57 billion deficit the largest in Ontario’s history. Of course there have always been some rumblings about Dalton and Gang’s much-loathed Ontario health “premium” which took more than $2-billion out of taxpayers’ pockets after McGuinty explicitly had said he wouldn’t increase taxes without voters’ consent. Now there is the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST), which Finance Minister and Windsor-Tecumseh MPP Dwight Duncan announced last spring. Public opposition to the new – and broadly applied – 13 per cent tax, to take effect next July 1 (Happy Canada Day!), is becoming reminiscent of the visceral opposition to Brian Mulroney’s introduction of the “hated”(you’re supposed to say that) Goods and Services Tax (GST) in the early-1990s. No matter how many economists write of the superiority of these consumer taxes over previous producer taxes for spurring the economy – and studies have shown the HST has created jobs in provinces where it already exists – Jane and Joe Public aren’t buying it. “Tax grab” is the phrase vehemently hurled at the Grits. The next election is scheduled for October 2011. A recent poll found opposition to the HST at 74 per cent. When the election is held the HST no doubt will still be fresh in people’s minds. But despite a lot of fulminations from someone like NDP Leader Andrea Horwath neither her party nor the provincial Tories say they will scrap it. (It’s one thing to oppose, it’s another to promise if elected to get rid of.) Yes, voters turfed Mulroney, and but good, over the GST. And the current two-term Ontario government is getting ragged around the edges. But unless the opposition – and in all seriousness that means the Tories under Tim Hudak since the NDP perennially runs third – can find a way to win over very disgruntled voters, Dalton’s Liberal regime might win again although possibly as a minority government.
WindsorOntarioNews.com Dec 8, 2009
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