This is what I've been talking about! Courtesy of Gloria Galloway from the Globe and Mail.
The federal Conservatives have determined that the key to their electoral success rests with the desire of middle-income Canadians to keep a bigger chunk of their paycheques in their pockets.
There once was a time when the Progressive Conservative party was perceived as the champion of corporate Canada. But corporations don't vote.
So Conservative Leader Stephen Harper, tutored as he is in the grassroots school of Reform, has been gradually rolling out a platform of tax cuts targeted directly at folks who make more than minimum wage and less than six figures.
And this is music to my ears.
..."What we are trying to do is aim them at people who have been left out over the last dozen years," said Monte Solberg, the party's eminently quotable tax critic. "It's true, we are shameless supporters of middle-income Canadians."
..."Once you start to make a few dollars beyond that $30,000 mark, the taxation rates, when you include both the middle-income bracket and the clawbacks on the [Canada child tax benefit], are so high that they really are the highest tax rates for any income group in Canada," Mr. Solberg said.
“It's time to start to give these people a bit of a break."
Ms. Galloway questions whether this will work but at a minimum it has the Liberals contemplating delaying their economic statement and adding tax-cuts to it.
...The federal government may delay its much-anticipated economic update until after Mr. Justice John Gomery's November sponsorship report so the Liberals can gauge whether they're in danger of being defeated and need to put pre-election goodies in the statement.
Government officials are debating whether to push back the statement until after the Gomery report to determine whether it might be used by the opposition to bring down the Liberals and force an election. If the report is critical of Prime Minister Paul Martin, or if polls show Canadians are upset with the findings, the government could use the statement as a mini-budget that could include items such as tax cuts and money for postsecondary tuition.
Susan Delacourt made an interesting point on CBC Politics last night. The Martin Liberals may be the first Liberals to turn the traditional axiom on its' ear. These Liberals campaigned to the right and governed to the left. My guess (hope?) is that having their right flank exposed puts the Blue Grits and dissatisfied Progressive Conservatives back in play. At a minimum I will be pleased if middle-class tax-cuts are put into the national agenda.
