Hmmm. My previous post actually gave laurels to NDP leader Jack Layton for his willingness to make suggestions in the upcoming budget and dropping his objections to corporate tax cuts as a trade-off. From Saturdays Globe and Mail article:
"The NDP is taking the vexed issue of corporate tax cuts off the table, leaving a four-point budget wish list as a way for Prime Minister Stephen Harper to avoid a spring election.
Mr. Harper and Jack Layton met Friday behind closed doors in the Prime Minister’s Langevin Block office. That meeting coincided with the NDP Leader’s decision to abandon the party’s demand that the Conservatives scrap further corporate tax cuts in the March budget.
“For us to not want [corporate tax cuts] taken out in this budget, the balance of the package is going to have to be very good,” the official said. “That’s why there is little or no room to bargain down from our proposal today.”
Funny thing that. From today's Globe and Mail:
"New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton left little doubt Sunday that his party will vote against the upcoming federal budget in March, which could force a spring election.
In his first interview since meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Friday, Mr. Layton said on the CTV’s Question Period that the NDP was opposed to the corporate tax cuts the Conservatives say will be in the budget."
Political posturing? Most likely. Surely Layton knows there will be no corporate tax cuts in the 2011 budget. Said tax cuts were implemented in the 2007 budget. Finance Minister Flaherty need not even mention the scheduled cuts still to come into effect.
So what's the deal. Is Layton pulling a Jekyll and Hyde act? Layton's official statement and press release never mentioned the tax cuts. Would Layton not have reiterated his opposition to said cuts in the media release? Or has the G&M simple adopted the Susan Delacourt way of writing an article? Perhaps the NDP official quoted in Saturday's article was a guy named Don Burroughs.
Or perhaps Layton has just simply reinforced what many already believe. That he is simple just a snake with no integrity that says what he thinks voters want to here on any given day, whether he believes it or not?
The Globe is reporting on Jack's interview on Question Period on Sunday Feb 20. He was pretty clear that the corporate tax cut had to be rolled back. Just one of Jack's proposals has a $1 billion price tag. There is no way Harper agrees to any of his demands.
ReplyDeleteWatch the want ads for Layton's demand that the Feds hire 5000 doctors. Doesn't he know they are not that easy to find, especially GPs.
ReplyDeleteDoes he want all doctors practicing now to take on additional patients that they can't handle.
And, GPs are in short supply, most grads go into some specialty field. Pay is better.
And most of those doctors are corporations and demanding their taxes be increased is not a great way to get them increase their workload.
Not to mention the fact the provinces and territories control their respective jurisdictions in reagrds to health care.
ReplyDeleteMaybe this explains it....
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/Taunts+from+moral+high+ground/4323205/story.html