If you think there's no connection between Monday's visit by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to the flood ravaged Richelieu region of Quebec and Monday's federal budget, think again.
On May 11, Harper rushed off to visit parts of Manitoba hit hard by record flooding, while Quebec settled for Governor General Richard Johnson on May 21, followed by Defence Minister Peter MacKay on May 25.
Prime Minister Harper showed up nearly 50 days after the floods struck, but just in time to deliver $2 billion to Quebec voters.
This latest pay out to La Belle Province was ostensibly their reward for harmonizing the HST, similar to the payments made to B.C. and Ontario.
The only problem is, in the case of B.C. and Ontario, the money was supposed to help offset the cost of implementing the tax.
In the case of Quebec, that province harmonized its sales tax nearly 20 years ago.
However, according to tax experts, Quebec did not follow the same rules as the other provinces that went to the HST and has continued to benefit from a special sales tax deal struck with Ottawa that allows it to still control its own sales tax and the federal GST.
According to a report in the National Post quoting the Canadian Taxpayers Federation's Derek Fildebrandt, Quebec's sales tax is not fully harmonized and therefore it should not receive full compensation.
Unlike B.C. and Ontario and the other "harmonized" provinces, Quebec does not exempt large corporations from paying sales tax on business expenses such as hospitality expenses, telecommunications and vehicle expenses. Quebec also gets an extra $700 million a year by imposing its sales tax on top of the federal GST in effect a tax on the tax.
At the same time it receives nearly $50 million a year from the Canada Revenue agency for administering the GST on behalf of Ottawa.
So while Canada wrestles with a $55 billion deficit, while Christy Clark threatens B.C. taxpayers with having to pay back $1.6 billion to the feds if the hated HST gets defeated in the upcoming referendum, Harper's conservatives continue to use our cash to buy off Quebec.
The French have an expression - "plus a change, plus c'est la mme chose", which translated means "the more things change, the more they stay the same."
So, despite a new majority government in Ottawa, a new Opposition Party and a new federal player in Quebec, it's the same old tired political games.
-- Prince George Citizen
