On ready responses

Aside from the thoroughly ineffective spin from competing political parties, the other factor that's seen as having any potential to derail the NDP's national surge is the increased scrutiny on the party's platform. But Jack Layton took exactly the questions we'd expect to see on that point from Macleans' editors and writers - and it's hard to see anything in the answers that does anything other than confirm that the NDP is offering a responsible option for change:

Q. Part of the way you say you’d pay for the new spending in your platform is by cracking down on offshore tax avoidance. You say that will eventually net the government $3 billion a year. But Canada and other countries have been trying for years to prevent this sort of illegal tax dodging. What makes you think you can make big progress fast?

A. By being determined and by putting in resources into the Canada Revenue Agency, which is had its resources cut as opposed to increased. If the CRA was a business, any CEO would be saying, look at the rate of return. Why aren’t we exploiting that business opportunity? Well you’re dealing with the rich and powerful, and maybe that’s an issue. That’s not an issue for me. I think that we should be trying to recover those funds and I think if it were done aggressively we could achieve those kind of targets.

We’ve also said, however, that in our platform, spending proposals need to be always analyzed against the fiscal capacity at the moment. That comes from the great traditions of Tommy Douglas administrations, Roy Romanow administrations. We’ve taken the same approach to it, and we’re taken modest steps, I think you probably may agree, compared to some past NDP platforms. We’re talking modest, practical steps when it comes to these different policy areas.

Q. So you’re if you weren’t able to get those revenue streams you wouldn’t do the spending.

A. That is precisely how we constructed our platform.

Q. Do you anticipate any reduction in business investment as a result of raising corporate tax rates?

A. It’s difficult to know. I know there’s predictions of doom and gloom by some, but our view is that we have to keep our tax rate competitive with the US, but it does not make sense to go dramatically go below where the Americans are.

Q. But do you model in any reduction in investment?

A. We anticipate that there could be some protests, maybe that would translate into some changes. But I believe that is counterbalanced by some of our platform, for example, calling an investment on investment in infrastructure in cities. And when you look at decisions to locate head offices, and to locate economic activities, the corporate tax rate is by no means the only economic marker. Quality of life, infrastructure, transportation capacity, all of these kind of things. If you’ve got good and affordable housing, then a place becomes more attractive. It’s getting the right mix really of policies, and I think we don’t have that right mix when it comes to Stephen Harper.

Q. As part of your promise to set up a cap and trade system to cut greenhouse gas emissions, you book $3.6 billion in revenues this year, 2011-12, coming from the sale of carbon emission rights. How could you possibly get a cap and trade system up so fast?

A. It would be tough, it would take some real determination, but we haven’t had anything like the determination that’s needed. We saw some real determination in some U.S. states, things were made to happen relatively quickly. In fact, there’s a system up and functioning with some American states that we could hook up to. Those discussions were well under way but we had zero enthusiasm, to put it mildly, from our national government. I think things could be made to happen a lot more quickly.