Parliament In Review: June 22, 2011

The second-last day of debates in this spring's session dealt mostly with Bruce Hyer's motion on small business. But lest anybody think there would be agreement on the details of an issue where every party supported the motion itself (resulting in a rather inexplicable standing vote)...

The Big Issue

So what did the parties find to debate about while agreeing on the NDP's plan for small business taxes?

Well, the Cons tried to put forward Japan as a positive example - which led to Hyer's apt observation that corporate taxes are significantly higher there. (And I'll offer a reminder that in fact, the Cons' target tax rate is identical to Japan's definition of an abusive tax haven.)

Meanwhile, Dennis Bevington raised an important point as to how corporate tax slashing doesn't get passed along to consumers when products are sold in the world economy. To which Maxime Bernier could only respond (loosely paraphrased) "Hayek! Lower Taxes! Blargh!".

For the Libs, Joyce Murray proudly labeled herself as more anti-government than the Cons by taking credit for the B.C. Libs' regulation-slashing. But due credit to Scott Brison for criticizing corporate tax cuts while noting that they only offer anything to 5% of businesses.

And finally, Hyer served up a reminder as to which party actually has the best record of balancing budgets.

Budget Votes

The other main votes taken on the 22nd involved budget estimates and related legislation. And there were a few noteworthy departures from what one might have expected.

Rather than opposing the budget in full, the Libs voted for the Cons' requested Senate funding. And after making a show of supporting the Cons' budget, the Bloc joined the other opposition parties in opposing not only the main estimates, but also the budget legislation reflecting the policies they supported.

In Brief

Mathieu Ravignat challenged the Cons on their willingness to impose even higher prescription drug prices through the CETA. Laurin Liu and Megan Leslie offered timely questions on the toxic extraction of shale gas. Similarly, Anne Minh-Thu Quach and Libby Davies questioned the Cons' plan to do nothing about health care until 2014, and were met with a thoroughly worn list of unrelated spin. In presenting a petition, Nathan Cullen slammed the Cons for standing alone in the world in favour of unfettered asbestos production and exports. And Peter Stoffer countered the Cons' war on knowledge by introducing a bill to remove the GST from books.