May 8, 2006

Harper's budget - A battle over framing the issue

It is not too late to write a letter on the first Harper government budget. If you have followed the news coverage, Harper has been largely successful at framing his budget as moderate. Partly this was due to his raising expectation re: increased military spending, then coming in with a smaller increase. His $2-billion in spending cuts over two years was less his campaign promise of $22.5-billion over five years. His budget was full of all kinds of narrowly targeted tax breaks - something all neo-con economists noted was completely contrary to his philosophy of opposing "social engineering" through a simple tax system. But the tax cuts were designed to pick off particular constituencies - playing on individualism and against people's sense of community.

I think we have two objectives in our letter writing:

1. We need to reframe the budget as a budget of a radical right-wing politician with contempt for the democratic process. To do that we need to focus on what was not in the budget: first, a confirmation that the long sought after child care accords between the previous government and the provinces will not be honoured and secondly, that the Kelowna Accord - an historic agreement years in the making, aimed at addressing the shameful neglect of First Nations populations across the country - will also not be honoured.

   These were not simply policies of the former Liberal government - they were hard fought agreements hammered out by elected governments - not political parties. Harper shows total contempt not only for those who would have benefited but for the democratic process that achieved them.

2. We need to reframe the message around the budget tax cuts. As Marc Lee of the CCPA pointed out in a column I sent around last week, Harper is taking his cue from American conservative spin doctors by casting tax cuts as "tax relief." It's a clever tactic - implying that paying taxes is an affliction and that Harper is going to provide relief from it.

We need to reframe taxes as the price we pay for a civilized society or cast the issue as one where everyone has to pay their fair share for strong communities. We know from polling that Canadians are actually willing to pay higher taxes - if they can be assured that the revenue from those taxes go to things like Medicare, education or child care.

Here is how you might make these points. PLEASE keep in mind that several of you in each community may be writing letters to the same paper. If this project is going to be effective you MUST reword these paragraphs and pick only a couple of points (for example: use either the child care example or the Kelowna Accord example). It takes longer but makes publication much more likely.

• First, debunk the idea that this is a moderate budget. It is not moderate but shamelessly political in trying to buy off a whole host of groups in Canadian society with ill-considered tax breaks. These tax breaks mean the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars need to fund social programs. In effect they divide people and disconnect them from their community interests.

• Stephen Harper's budget reveals once again that he interprets his "winning" of the election as an opportunity to impose his contempt for government on Canadians. The child care agreements signed by the previous Liberal government with virtually every province have been tossed aside as if they never happened. These agreements were not signed with the Liberal Party of Canada - they were signed between sovereign, elected governments after much negotiation.

• Stephen Harper's budget tries to maintain the myth that $1200 a year for parents is actually a child care policy. It is nothing of the sort and will not create a single new child care space. According to the Caledon Institute a hypothetical Ontario couple with one child and a family income of $30,000 would end up with just $199 after taxes and claw backs of other government programs.

• Stephen Harper won just 36% of the vote and according to an Environics poll 60% of Conservative voters simply voted to get rid of the Liberals - and not "for" Harper's policies. Yet Mr Harper has just thrown out an historic agreement with the First Nations. The Kelowna Accord was not just some policy cooked up by the Liberal Party - it was an agreement literally unprecedented in Canadian history: signed by the federal, provincial, territorial governments and representatives of the First Nations. It is an appalling contempt for indigenous people and for democracy.

Use one of these...

• Throughout the Conservative finance minister's speech he referred over and over again to the need for tax "relief." Since when is paying my fair share of taxes an affliction (burden) that needs to be relieved. I am happy to pay my taxes because I receive in return all the things necessary for a civilized society.

• I don't need to be "relieved" of my tax "burden." I pay taxes because they are the price of a civilized society.

• All sorts of survey's say that Canada is one of the best countries in the world to live. For that reason I am happy to pay my membership dues in this exclusive and enviable club. I do that by paying my taxes. If we keep cutting taxes we will soon find that Canada will start slipping down the list of great places to live.

• Canada is a community, not just a disconnected collection of millions of customers. As citizens and members of a community we must all pay our fair share of taxes or all the things that make us a community will gradually disappear.