COPE

With the turn of the calendar the COPE Committee wish a Happy New Year to all our members. The upcoming year should be a very active year for our committee considering there will be a Municipal election and threats of a Federal election as well.

Ontario will adopt a harmonized sales tax starting July 1/ 2010. In a protest, two, Tory MPP’s, have been ejected from the legislature until government is prorogued (suspended). The two MPP’s sat in the legislature slamming the lids of their desks in a vain attempt making a statement regarding the public consultations on the HST. One was ejected for calling the Premier a liar, and refusing to apologize while the other was ejected for banging his desktop repeatedly. It is extremely unfortunate that, under the guise of democracy, elected Members of Provincial Parliament play petty politics and childish games disrupting government and delaying other important issues from being raised and debated.   Popular opinion is that the HST is nothing more than a cash grab. While there is some validity to that statement the fact is that, the more downloading of services from the Federal government to the provinces, the more money is required to deal with them. It has been stated that the blending of the 8% PST and the 5% GST will create 600,000 jobs over 10 years.  This will be accomplished by making Ontario private sector employers more cost competitive in the market place.   It has been quoted that Ontario and B.C. combined will reduce operating costs for employers by an estimated $6.9 Billion resulting in job creation and capital investments of $47 Billion. The proof will be known by the time we go to the polls provincially in 2011. If there has been some significant change in taxation and job creation the electorate may see the reasoning the government used to make the decision and vote accordingly. If not the backlash may be swift and decisive.

 

 

Fraternally, Steven Martin, COPE Chair