tinydancer
Diamond Member
Much has been made in this thread about our conservative governments and their role in balancing the budget, especially Mulroney and the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax.
The GST was introduced when NAFTA can into effect. It replaced the 15% manufacturers tax which Mulroney lifted to allow Canadian manufacturers to compete more effectively with American made goods.
Contrary to Tiny Dancer's assertions, introduction of the GST was disastrous for the Canadian economy and plunged the country into a deep recession. Canadians turfed Mulroney from office and reduced his majority government to just 4 sitting members of Parliament. The Progressive Conservative Party never recovered and what remained of the party amalgamated with the Reform Party under the banner of today's Conservative Party of Canada.
NAFTA has been a mixed blessing. We lost a lot of our manufacturing to the southern US where costs were lower. At one point there were 20,000 auto workers in Oshawa. They worked for the 4 GM plants there and other companies supplying GM. Today there are 2,000 GM workers at one plant in Oshawa.
It should also be noted that the Canadian Conservative Party is much further to the left of the American Democratic Party. While Stephen Harper would like to introduce 2-tier medicine to Canada, Canadians won't allow it. Anyone who has tried has found themselves out of power and very quickly.
Our budget is balanced because Canadians, unlike Americans, are not adverse to paying taxes, providing we're getting value for our money. We don't have a lot of programs cutting breaks to large corporate interests which you have. All of our corporations pay taxes, unlike large American corporations and we have a reasonable minimum wage.
Our medical costs are nearly half of yours because of low administration costs, made possible by our single payer system. Something that you want nothing to do with. We also don't have a means test on many of our social programs having learned that administration costs for means tests are more expensive than universal coverage.
Canada spends its tax dollars on its citizens and its infrastructure, not on a bloated military industrial complex to protect American multinational corporate holdings abroad. We spend money on education for our young people with all post-secondary institutions being state funded and lower cost than US schools giving us a well educated population. This reduces poverty and social assistance.
In short, our government is run for the benefit of people, not corporations.
I'm going to tackle this post a segment at a time.
I gave credit to PM Mulroney for doing the "right thing" with the introduction of the GST at the time.
I also said that it cost the Conservative government their power and wiped them out as a party. They paid a heavy price.
I have given kudos and full credit to Finance Minister Paul Martin for seizing hold of an economy on the brink of total disaster; talking Prime Minister Cretien out of scrapping the GST and turning our economy completely around.
Martin used the tool of the GST in combination with very hard and deep cuts in spending to do so. And he took a lot of hits for not looking at the GST as a money maker but to truly use it to balance the books.
And YAY!
I can give credit to my political opponents without blinking an eye. It doesn't hurt my parts to give Paul Martin and PM Chretien their due.
One more time.
Now to Paul Martin. Credit where credit is due. Between PM Chretien and Finance Minister Martin they kept the super progressive spend every penny we have and more at bay and with Mulroney's GST move turned deficits to surpluses.
You see Paul Martin was a genius of a businessman before he became Finance Minister as compared to Tim Geithner who had never had a job in the real world and was put in a position of power he should never ever have been let near.
And for a liberal, he did the unheard of. Holy toledo !!!!!! He slashed spending like crazy. AND utilized the GST to work towards a balance budget that he was finally able to introduce a balance budget in 1998.
Awesome. Just awesome. But one more time Economics 101 prevailed. He worked diligently to not spend more than the revenue he was raking in. And he made a lot of enemies in his own party for not bending to their "lets spend everything and more" ways.
Kudos to Martin. Big time. I will be forever grateful to this really brave men between Mulroney and his Finance Minister and ditto to Jean Chretien and Paul Martin. Man these guys really took a lot of heat and hits for the good of the country.