Listening to the premier and finance minister trying to sell this solution to the HST reminded me of a story I heard many years ago.
It’s a bit long winded to put in here but the gist of it is a farmer is feeling overcrowded in his house and seeks advice from the priest. Over the course of a month, one week at a time, the priest suggests moving all the man’s livestock into the house. At the end of it he then suggests the last animal that was moved in, a goat, can now be moved out again: look how much room you have. It’s a comparative thing, of course and works great when a priest is telling it to kick off his sermon.
The reason I’m bringing it up is because this solution is simply moving out a goat.
If (and only if) we behave ourselves and vote to keep the HST, all sorts of wonderful things will come our way. A 2% reduction in the HST will take place over 2 years (pause while the “whoop”s and “eee”s die down). There will be a generous serving of nutritious table scraps for families with children under the age of 18 in the form of a cash pay out of $175 per child and low income seniors will also be given helpings of similar gruel. Ah yes, a little bribing the electorate with their own money goes a long way…
If the tax is a good thing then stand by it. It was implemented badly but that is done and over with now; the economic kick to the oh-be-joyful’s it delivered has diminished to a dull ache. If they just cowboyed up, treated the voters like grown-ups and framed the HST as an unpleasant but necessary fact of life, I’m pretty sure they could make a decent campaign out of it.
But this promised reduction of the HST will be a nightmare to implement for businesses and will be beaten senseless by inflation within months. My children are over the age of 18 and I’m not old enough to be considered an impoverished senior so I don’t even get the consolation prize. The majority of people in the province are treading water and now the government is offering shark bait instead of a life line.
It really is an insult to an already fair to middling pissed off peasantry who are dusting off their torches and pitchforks.
(What the hell am I whining about? Background info courtesy of CBC)