Index

No Need for HST

The provincial government is going to implement a new tax, the infamous HST on taxpayers. Don’t they understand that consumer spending is 70 per cent of our GDP? All economic recoveries are fuelled by an increase in consumer spending.

Our federal and provincial governments have a tool at their disposal that they always ignore and it is called the Bank of Canada. If there were two banks in town and you owned one of them, where would you borrow your money from?

Under Article 18 subsections (c) (i) and (j) of the Bank of Canada Act, the Bank of Canada may make loans to the provincial government that shall not exceed one-fourth of its estimated revenue for the fiscal year and in the case of the federal government, such loans shall not exceed one-third of its estimated annual revenue.

Why is it our elected officials never make use of the tools available to them on our behalf?

The federal government is the sole shareholder of our bank and all interest is returned to them as dividends. Our debt increased from 1867 to 1992 to $423 billion. Only eight per cent of this debt was used for goods and services and 91 per cent has been spent on interest. This interest bearing debt is pointless when we have our own bank. These figures come from Statistics Canada.

My goodness, if I were an elected official and knew that our problem was the $160 million per day – that’s right, $160 million per day, we spend on interest payments on both provincial and federal debt – I would take advantage of our bank and replace this private debt to our own bank as permitted in the Bank of Canada Act.

If the province took advantage of our bank, there would be no need for the HST.

Andre Marentette, Belle River

– from Economic Reform, January 2010

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