HST

Friday April 20, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Friday April 20, 2012

Ontario NDP drops push to cut HST

The Ontario NDP is withdrawing a push to exempt home heating bills from the harmonized sales tax, in a significant concession that ratchets up the pressure on the governing Liberals ahead of a budget vote that could trigger a provincial election.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said in a Thursday morning news conference that it’s become clear in recent days that Premier Dalton McGuinty “strongly disagrees” with an HST exemption for home heating.

“Now, I hope that over the term of this minority government, I can convince the premier that he’s wrong. But I have to be frank. I just don’t think that that’s going to happen within the next couple of days,” she said.

“And for that reason, I am letting it be known today that we don’t expect the HST to come off home heating in this budget.”

Horwath said that a number of other NDP demands tabled in the leadup to the vote on the provincial budget next Tuesday — including a tax increase for the wealthiest in the province — remain in play.

The ball is now in McGuinty’s court, she said.

“Mr. McGuinty has to make a choice. Is he going to stand with the mom that needs a child-care space for her son or daughter? Or is he going to stand with the millionaire? Is he going to stand with health care improvements, or with millionaires?”

She criticized both the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives for being inflexible when it comes to the budget. The Progressive Conservatives announced before the budget was tabled that they would not be supporting it. (Source: CBC News) 

 

Thursday April 5, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Thursday April 5, 2012

NDP isn’t drawing a line in the budgetary sand

For a fleeting moment earlier this week, it appeared Andrea Horwath had finally set a make-or-break condition for supporting Dwight Duncan’s budget.

With Tuesday’s call to apply an extra tax to anyone making more than $500,000 per year, the Ontario NDP Leader served up the kind of attention-grabber from which it’s difficult to back away – and that, if rejected by Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals, could make for an NDP-friendly wedge issue during a provincial election.

And yet, no sooner had Ms. Horwath gone public with her demand than she was once again reminding journalists that she has no intention of drawing “lines in the sand.” The implication was that she’ll be satisfied if the Liberals instead grant a few other, less showy concessions from the list of requests she’s slowly rolling out.

It was the latest signal that, against the advice of some of the more hawkish members of her party, Ms. Horwath is determined to play the long game.

If she were primarily concerned with the here and now, Ms. Horwath would be leaning toward helping Tim Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives bring down Mr. McGuinty’s minority government.

Doing so would carry less risk for the NDP than for the Tories, who are still going through a behind-the-scenes shakeup that has them a long way from election readiness, and have struggled to convincingly explain why they’d force an election over a right-leaning budget. By contrast, the New Democrats could rely on the same campaign team they did a few months ago, and make a coherent case against austerity measures – from social-assistance freezes to the shutdown of northern transit services – that run contrary to their policies and principles. (Source: Globe & Mail)