Another example of what passes as a clever idea in the Liberal Party, an organization long bereft of ideas:
The chairman of the House of Commons Finance committee hopes to offer tax breaks to Canadians for discovering their country.
The national-unity problem is partly a result of Canadians not knowing enough about one another and tax deductions for domestic travel could help provide a remedy, says Liberal MP Massimo Pacetti.
He is tabling a private member's bill Monday that would offer a $1,000 deduction to Canadians who cross three provincial borders during their holidays. The benefit would offer a minimum $350 reimbursement for bus, train or air travel.
So take the wrong kind of vacation, the government keeps your money. Take the right kind, and you get some of your money back, if Massimo Pacetti, MP for the Montreal-area riding of Saint-Leonard–Saint-Michel, has his way.
Good thing the Liberal Party is there to judge what you do with your spare time and with the paltry amount of discretionary personal spending you have left after paying 60% or more of what you make to various income and consumption taxes.
Do you have needs that could be served with that cash? Food, baby supplies, gas for the car to get to work? Too bad -- MP Pacetti wants to use the money to pay for someone else's vacation. You're out of luck.
Of course, this idea will play well in the Maritimes, where you can have breakfast, get in the car, and cross three provincial borders by supper. Out in the (Conservative) West, where the provinces are big, Canadians would have to drive a lot farther (and burn a lot more gas), or take an expensive plane ride, to qualify for the benefit.
Not that the benefit matters all that much. As Pacetti excitedly explains, the government will claw back your vacation allowance by taxing all the things you spend it on:
Pacetti said idea would not be a burden - but a benefit - to the public treasury. He said the increased GST revenue alone would more than compensate for the cost of the deduction.
"It's a no-brainer," he said. "It's a net benefit to the federal government - never mind the local economies."
Since when do we measure the value of an idea that sees the return of your tax money based on whether it first harms government revenue? While there are people in power who put the wealth of the government ahead of the personal wealth of individual Canadians, we'll never see meaningful change in this country, meaningful change in the relationship and responsibilities between government and people.
Of course, that is one of the reasons we have a national unity crisis.
National unity is not going to substantially affected by vacationers, government subsidized or otherwise. National unity is a problem because of the asymmetric way in which the Liberals in four decades of power have lifted Quebec to a place of preeminence, defining it as the lynchpin of Canadian identity, tailoring all national programs to be consistent with that province's socialist/statist philosophy, a philosophy that identifies government, and not the individual, as the most important mechanism by which citizens see their money spent.
It's that same socialist/statist mindset the gives rise to the idea that the federal government needs to actively influence your personal vacation planning. An idea from a Quebec MP, of course.
The rest of the country? Liberal rule treats other provinces, at best, as a source of cash and votes (Ontario), or, at worst, as the enemy to be sidelined (Alberta), all the while subject to the same socialist/statist rules.
Who wants to vacation across a country when all you'll find is province after province filled with miserable penniless sheep?
