Selinger’s tax return stunt an unlikely saviour

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/04/2016 (3534 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NDP Leader Greg Selinger laid a page from his 2014 tax return on his kitchen counter, inviting reporters on Sunday to look at his declared income. The man who’s hoping to keep his job says it’s all about transparency. But declaration of income is not the same as a person’s net worth, where money and investments are held.

Somehow this is supposed to show Manitobans their premier has nothing to hide. “I have no foreign holdings or accounts,” he stated. Give him a pass on the Panama Papers litmus test, then. And by implication, according to the NDP, Tory Leader Brian Pallister’s refusal to release his tax return for that one year is hiding something. Nefarious, no?

The NDP stunt was carefully managed, with the premier welcoming the media into his humble St. Boniface home, a nice contrast to the $2-million mansion Mr. Pallister lives in. House envy? Of course not. Mr. Selinger says that in the midst of the offshore-accounts scandal that has caught up a number of global leaders, Manitobans must be assured their politicians are not evading taxes and hiding pertinent financial information.

Yet, if Manitobans are interested in knowing where politicians have stashed their cash, they can inspect any MLA’s declaration of assets, including interests they hold in corporations, property, stocks etc. That detail is filed at the beginning of each legislative session and members must update the material if the details change mid-session. This is part of the legislative assembly’s conflict of interest act, kept on file to ensure no MLA or minister votes or acts on matters that could financially benefit them or their families.

On Sunday, Mr. Selinger said he and his wife own a cottage on a Lake of the Woods island and his wife owns a second cottage. Mr. Pallister, meanwhile, told reporters he owns property in Costa Rica, and pays Canadian taxes on interest from an account he has there.

That’s reasonable disclosure. What the NDP is trying to do, however, is paint Mr. Pallister as a wealthy guy — a sin, apparently, for a man who would be premier. The point of the stunt, presumably, is to reveal the Wellington Crescent resident is out of touch with ordinary, struggling Manitobans. But that’s a stretch given that many and maybe most of the 99-per-centers in this province could say the same about Selinger, whose combined family income is north of $275,000.

If Mr. Selinger really believes the Opposition leader is hiding income from the taxman, he should say that. Instead, the party issued a news release posing a number of inflammatory questions: “What is Mr. Pallister afraid of? What is in his tax return that he is hiding from the people of Manitoba?”

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They might have said the same, or more, about Liberal Leader Rana Bokhari, who released a page from her 2013 Revenue Canada statement, indicating the room she has in RSP contributions, which also gives her annual income. Asked for her 2014 statement, she said she didn’t have it at hand, doesn’t know if she filed one.

The Panama Papers controversy served as an excuse for the tax-return challenge, but the NDP merely dusted this one off from the 1988 campaign, when it was in similarly desperate shape. Then-leader Gary Doer laid his on the table, and so did his competition. It made no difference to the NDP’s fortunes. Mr. Selinger says disclosing tax returns is merely good form for a political leader. If so, why just now? It didn’t work in 1988. Unless Mr. Pallister’s wife’s name is found hiding in the client base of a law firm on a small, hot island nation, the NDP likely will ride this one, again, all the way to the other side of the House on April 19.