income (dis) trust...

In a surprise move this week Canada’s “new” government managed to drain over $24 billion from the Toronto Stock Exchange all in the name of creating a more stable long-term economic sector in Canada. It also bears mentioning that they stand to recoup billions in lost tax revenue; over the next five years they can easily expect to pad the national treasury to the tune of at least $5 billion. Yes, the issue of income trusts.

I have to ask myself, why do they need bigger surpluses? So they can make other "surprise announcements" of further cuts to federal spending in order to further increase the sacred surplus? How much surplus is too much surplus? Under the Harper government we may never know the answer. Cut is the new spend.

My essential point is that Canadians aren't exactly getting more for their tax dollar these days, and a Conservative promise is clearly not something anybody can or should take to the bank, so I ask again: WHAT is the point?

I'm not an economist (clearly!), and it's hard to decipher the contradictory analysis coming from various quarters of the famously self-contradictory schools of Economics (some say it's good, some say it's bad, some say it's too soon to tell...), but I do know that this is another surprise decision taken by a MINORITY government that struts about like it is the first and last word on all that is good for Canadians. Any critics are just activists, socialists or, worse than all of this, LIBERALS (that would be Canada’s “old” government).

If angering investors is the point, then fine. Let's all throw good money after bad decisions. Bear in mind that investors aren’t just corporate fat cats, but Jane and Joe Canadian, who invested because they were told it was a responsible thing to do, you know that whole ‘security-that-comes-from-having-a-nest-egg’ thing. And of course that includes anyone with a pension plan or RRSPs. I know many people who took direct and significant hits because of this “surprise announcement”.

Memo to Stephen Harper: They all vote.