This article appeared in the Toronto Sun on Monday November 24, 2014
Is anyone else tired of the same old song and dance from the Wynne government? They’re always blaming others for their fiscal misfortunes. First it was
Mike Harris, then
Stephen Harper, now they’re blaming "
the underground economy." And they keep emphasizing the need for new revenues — more ways to nickel and dime the taxpayers of Ontario — to reconcile for the fact they waste and spend so much of our money.
They’re like an addict at the race track, blaming others for their troubles and using borrowed money to go all in on a long shot.
The
fall economic statement earlier this month was more of the same. With the economy still sluggish — thanks in part to tax hikes and ever-expanding bureaucratic red tape in this province — revenues are down. The Finance Minister Charles Sousa proclaimed that his government plans to go after black markets and businesses that get paid “under the table” to help bring in more money for his government to spend.
In the meantime, his plan is to keep borrowing and continue to plunge Ontario even deeper into the red. Hence the $12.5 billion shortfall this year, that will get added to Ontario’s $275 billion provincial debt.
But even with an abstract plan to go after an underground economy, the estimated revenues are hardly enough to make up for the burgeoning debt.
Cracking down on contraband tobacco is a sound idea. Minister Sousa claims it will bring in
$700 million over four years; a drop in the budget compared to the annual deficit.
And if the Wynne government were really serious about cracking down on contraband tobacco, why would they hike tobacco taxes by
12 per cent in the 2014 budget? Taxes, after all, comprise the lion’s share of tobacco prices. Simple economics tells us that when prices on legal tobacco are hiked, there will be more of a demand for those products in the black market.
So while the government is driving people to the illegal tobacco market, they are now also spending money trying cracking down on it.
As for the underground economy, it is difficult to imagine how they will crack down on cash payments. Will babysitters need to be licensed with the Ontario College of Trades? Should
lemonade stands be forced to register with the Canada Revenue Agency? Perhaps the Tooth Fairy will have to start deducting taxes on gifts left under our children’s pillows.
The absurd extent to which the government would have to act to crack down on underground economy leaves us to conclude that the fall economic statement was simply a distraction away from the Ontario’s real problem: the government’s horrendous fiscal management.
They complain about a lack of revenues, and scheme about ways to pry open our wallets, when everyone knows the real problem is with their spending.
The Wynne government can barely recover from one spending scandal when the next waste bombshell is dropped.
Just as taxpayers were trying to wrap their heads around why the government would lend $224 million to cover the cost of empty office space in MaRS — a government-lead bureaucratic research centre in the heart of Toronto — we learn that they also
spent $468 million of taxpayer money to buy peace with the teacher’s unions.
The Wynne government needs to ‘fess up. They are spending addicts. No amount of new revenues will cover the costs of their endless incompetence.
Candice Malcolm is the Ontario Director of the CTF
