Harmonic convergence

When I posted earlier this week about the likelihood that the federal Cons' infiltration of provincial governments will extent far beyond merely "eyes and ears" in Newfoundland, I'd figured it wouldn't take long for the Saskatchewan Party to offer up a prime example. But I'm mildly surprised that even before capitulating on equalization, the Wall government is already allowing Harper to dictate other priorities:

Under pressure from Ottawa, the province's new government will again look at the contentious issue of harmonizing the provincial sales tax with the federal Goods and Services Tax, Saskatchewan Party Finance Minister Rod Gantefoer said Monday...

"It seems to be a fairly major initiative on the federal government's plate anyway. There doesn't seem to be a lot of takers ... however, I think that virtually all of the provinces are probably going to have to look at it," Gantefoer said in a telephone interview from his legislature office.

Gantefoer said the federal government wants provinces to indicate by the time of the spring federal budget whether they are interested in harmonization.

So as part of the province's own budget process, finance officials have been tasked to look at the ramifications for Saskatchewan of merging the five per cent PST with the federal tax, he said.

When the provincial budget is delivered, which is usually at the end of March, the Sask. Party government expects to be able to either say no or indicate it's open to further discussions with the federal government on harmonization.

"By the fact that the federal government has more of an initiative to push on it, it certainly forces the question and forces the timeline," said Gantefoer.

It's particularly noteworthy that Gantefoer doesn't even show enough interest in the matter to make any real comment on the substance of the issue. Instead of bothering to consider whether it should make harmonization a priority, the Wall regime is apparently taking the position that if Stephen Harper has ideas about how Saskatchewan should be run, who's a mere provincial government to argue?

Of course, it remains to be seen whether Gantefoer will end up acceding to the Cons' desire to push forward with harmonization. But from today's story, there's little reason to think that the Sask Party has any intention of resisting federal pressure - and every reason for concern that the result could be even worse decisions than the Sask Party would make on its own.