On the surface the Doer administration's Bill 37, an omnibus bill that creates a Lobbyists Registration Act and amends existing acts relating to spending before and during elections and by the legislative assembly, looks like a grand idea. Who can argue with fixed elections dates and accountability for lobbyists?
But peel back the layers of Bill 37 and hidden within the many sections and subsections of this convoluted legislation is a little thing called hypocrisy. An ugly word, yes, but in this case all too appropriate.
For years, business groups, academics and even social groups have called upon the government to index the personal income tax system to protect taxpayers against inflation. In other words, increase tax brackets and tax exemptions by the rate of inflation to protect your real wages against the rising cost of gas and groceries.
It's not rocket science. For a government that repeats ad nauseam the tired mantra of "middle of the pack," it's what every other jurisdiction does.
Why do other NDP, Liberal and Conservative governments from coast to coast index? Simple, because it's fair, it's the right thing to do and there is no single tax strategy better designed to help low- and fixed-income individuals.
Yet despite this, our government denies taxpayers this simple measure of fairness and as a result has fleeced more than $100 million from the pockets of working Manitobans since 2000. Who knew doing nothing cost so much?
As part of the legislation recently introduced, political parties will now be funded directly through your tax dollars. We all shake our collective heads when we see examples of dubious spending by government and how our taxes seem to go up in smoke. Now your tax dollars will fund the agenda of political parties you may not actually support. Based on the results from the 2007 provincial election, the New Democratic Party will receive $250,000 annually under this proposed legislation. The Conservatives will receive $198,000, the Liberals $65,000 and the Greens $7,000, for a total of $520,000. (Those amounts would be adjusted after every election, reflecting the proportion of the vote each party wins.) To put it in perspective, that $520,000 is the equivalent of the total provincial income tax paid by 161 middle-income Manitobans. That's 161 taxpayers whose $3,221 provincial income tax bill, the highest level in Western Canada, will not be going to help pay for health, highways and higher education, but to the NDP, PC, Liberal and Green parties.
Imagine, not one single cent paid by any of those people will go to fixing that pothole you had to dodge, to ensure a police officer patrols your neighbourhood tonight, to hire a phys-ed teacher for your children. Not one single cent paid by any of those people will make sure that a nurse is available should you have to go to the hospital.
So what does Bill 37 have to do with hypocrisy and why should you care? Well here's the rub, the same provincial government that denies you, as a taxpayer, protection from bracket creep has ensured that its political arm is protected. According to the proposed legislation, at the beginning of each calendar year the annual allowance paid to the NDP and all provincial parties is to be adjusted to inflation. So assuming a two per cent inflation rate, that $250,000 going to the NDP this year will become $255,000 next year. Throw in the potential $520,000 payout to all of Manitoba's political parties and you as a taxpayer are now on the hook for an additional $10,000 per year thanks to the NDP government's built-in inflation protection. We're now up to 164 middle-income taxpayers whose taxes are being redirected from funding the priorities of all Manitobans to funding the political views of some Manitobans.
Funny how dollars are scarce when it comes to tax reductions, but when it comes to the public funding of political parties there is no end in sight.
Manitobans should be outraged. It's one thing for the premier to argue against a particular public tax policy, but when that very argument is ignored when it comes to funding the premier's own political party, then that is hypocrisy. The truly unfortunate component of all this is the fact that the premier has always known that protection against inflation is valid, just politically inconvenient. Bill 37 exposes the fact that when it is to his party's advantage, the premier fully embraces the logic of indexing.
Shannon Martin is the director of provincial affairs for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business
shannon.martin@cfib.ca
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