Here's your platform, Mr. Dion
JEFFREY SIMPSON
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
April 11, 2008 at 8:16 PM EDT
The $60-billion question – that's what the next election should be about. Campaigning should start soon.
At issue should be the $60-billion that the Harper government has “spent” on cutting two points from the GST. If the Liberals could ever get their act together – a very large if – they would explain a quite different way of “spending” $60-billion.
Stéphane Dion is a well-meaning, intelligent man. But he's been engulfed in a sea of troubles since becoming Liberal leader. Worse, the Liberal Party has long since ceased being the “natural governing party of Canada,” with all the discipline and cohesion that came with governing.
The Liberals have spent about as much time out of power as exercising it since 1984. Along the way, they've picked up the bad habits of opposition: unrequited ambition, factionalism, backstabbing, a preference for the shouted denunciation rather than a considered alternative, a dance to the 24-hour news cycle.
All those unhappy habits plagued the party during John Turner's leadership in the 1980s. They now make Mr. Dion's life miserable. But he makes his own life miserable with political errors and, worse, vagueness about where he stands.
Mr. Dion was supposed to be the green leader, but who knows where he and his party are on climate change? Indeed, where do the Liberals stand on almost anything, except on their feet in the Commons denouncing everything the Harperites propose? (The parties did work together on the Afghan resolution.) Mr. Dion will never be a charmer or a schmoozer. But, then, is Stephen Harper? Mr. Dion will never speak Churchillian English, but then the Prime Minister's French isn't exactly from l'Académie française. Leaders of the opposition almost always trail prime ministers in popularity, but Mr. Dion's standing is still startlingly low.
Mr. Dion, appearing weak, overcompensates by trying to look strong. He draws lines in the sand, and then has to retreat, thereby making himself look weak again. Tactically, Mr. Harper runs rings around the Liberals. Strategically, too, because the Liberals haven't rallied around Mr. Dion or, more important, a set of ideas.
So, the Liberals should throw down the gauntlet and make the next election, and the months that precede it, the $60-billion question.
The Liberals should say: Elect us, and the GST is going back up to 7 per cent from 5 per cent. Over five years, that will bring in about $60-billion, or $12-billion a year, or $6-billion a year for each GST point.
Sixty billion dollars is not pocket change. A lot can be done with that money to make Canada greener and more competitive.
For starters, personal income taxes should be lowered, especially the marginal rates on low- to moderate-income taxpayers. Almost every economist would say this makes for better social policy and makes the economy more competitive than cutting the consumption tax. (The GST tax credit can be adjusted upward for very low-income people.) Another chunk of the $60-billion could be used, with the income tax cut, to help the party fulfill its promise to reduce poverty.
Another chunk should be put into upgrading the country's infrastructure that, as every municipality in the country can attest, badly needs more money. A very ambitious government would be investing in high-speed rail in the Toronto-Montreal and Calgary-Edmonton corridors.
In other words, the Liberals should take the $60-billion, slap it on the electoral table, and bet their political life on a different use for that money. A set of such policies would (a) give the party something to rally around instead of spending time dreaming up alternative leadership scenarios, (b) give Mr. Dion, a cerebral fellow, something constructive to promote, (c) present the country with a clear alternative, and (d) attract green and NDP votes.
If the Liberals wanted to up the ante, they would call for a carbon tax that, within five years or so, could bring in another $20-billion or more, depending on how the tax was structured. With that money, and a chunk of the GST “spending,” Canada could have one of the lowest rates of personal income tax in the world – and that would do more for competitiveness than what's happening with today's policies.
The bottom line is, Mr. Dion has got to stand for something, since his own persona won't cut it as a political winner. Liberals might worry that, even if they thought these thoughts, they should keep them under wraps until the election.
Wrong. It takes months and months of solid pounding to get more than a fraction of the electorate clued into an idea a party proposes. It's especially hard for the Official Opposition, since the media are mostly interested in the noise it creates rather than its constructive alternatives.
The nature of contemporary politics suggests waiting to present ideas is bad tactics. But first, of course, a party has to have ideas. Making the $60-billion question the ballot issue would be one such idea.