Campbell's Tax Cuts Failed to Work
Jobs and investment were supposed to flow, but didn't. Biggest loser: our wrecked forest economy.
Economic policy as chainsaw surgery.
-
BC's Broken Economy
A labour perspective on why B.C.'s economy became so vulnerable to battering by recession, the human damage done, and how to measure a truly healthy economy.
-
BC's Crazy Timber Economics
-
Enough Tax Cuts!
Harper keeps carving away at Canada's soul.
For a decade now, we have been told over and over that cutting corporate taxes will stimulate investment and create jobs.
In B.C., Gordon Campbell's government has steadfastly maintained that if you simply reduce corporate taxes, companies will respond by performing in the interests of British Columbians. "Under a BC Liberal government," Campbell said, announcing his sweeping 2001 tax cuts just days after being elected, "British Columbia is once again going to be the destination province where people and businesses want to move and invest."
Similarly, that was Campbell's line last year when he sprang his unwelcome surprise plan to harmonize B.C.'s sales tax with the federal goods and services tax. The HST shifts $1.9 billion in taxes away from corporations on to the shoulders of average families. Said Campbell in a July 23, 2009 news release: "This is the single biggest thing we can do to improve B.C.'s economy. This is an essential step to make our businesses more competitive, encourage billions of dollars in new investment, lower costs on productivity and reduce administrative costs to B.C. taxpayers and businesses. Most importantly, this will create jobs and generate long-term economic growth that will in turn generate more revenue to sustain and improve crucial public services."
After nearly ten years, it seems fair to evaluate this oft-repeated claim, which has, after all, formed the cornerstone of the B.C. Liberals' economic policy from Day One. Have we in fact seen significantly higher levels of investment than during the 1990s? Have we seen substantial job creation?
Unfortunately for most citizens of the province, the answer to both questions is "no".
Little evidence of jobs or investment
AFTER TAX CUTS, PRODUCTIVITY BLED AWAY
Despite his promises to the contrary, Premier Campbell's tax cuts haven't delivered a significant uptick in investment in B.C., as shown in the accompanying article. The province's poor investment performance means falling productivity, which impacts our standard of living by reducing outputs and exports, especially in the manufacturing and resource sectors.
Commenting on Canada's recent "lackluster productivity growth," the Centre for Study of Living Standards noted in 2008 for instance that: "The situation in British Columbia is similar and in some respects, even worse. The province significantly benefited from an increase in commodity prices and the ensuing resurgence of mining. . . but has generally been performing below the Canadian average in terms of labour productivity."
It's disturbing then, to find that the CSLS concludes that from 2001 to 2007, investment intensity in British Columbia averaged 12.9 per cent of gross provincial product, 1.5 per cent below the national average (14.4 per cent).
B.C. also trailed Canada in the 2000s in the investment intensity in both major kinds of capital assets: structures (6.7 per cent versus 6.9 per cent in Canada) and, more importantly, machinery and equipment (6.2 per cent versus 7.5 per cent). B.C. also had low investment intensity in information and communications technologies, a key driver of productivity growth. Over the 2001-2007 period, in B.C. investment intensity in this type of equipment averaged 2.1 per cent, 0.4 per cent below the national average.
Similarly, a 2009 report by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of B.C. shows that between 2003 and 2008, productivity fell by 0.6 per cent per year, the value of exports per worker fell by 4.3 per cent per year and employment in the sciences grew at only 60 per cent the national average -- even though the ratio of after-tax corporate profits to gross provincial product rose annually by 2.3 percent, more than twice the national average.
"Ongoing investment in private and public infrastructure, technological innovation and dissemination and education and training of B.C.'s labour force are all required to boost B.C.'s lagging productivity growth," warn the CAs. But that of course is exactly where the cash-strapped Campbell government is now cutting! -- K.P.
Since 2001, the government has repeatedly cut corporate taxes in B.C. And it plans to reduce them even more. Recently, nine months after first announcing the HST, the government asked University of Calgary economist Jack Mintz to project its effects on future jobs and investment. Mintz also reviewed the government's past record. "Over the past decade," he said, "British Columbia has taken a large number of steps to makes its economy more tax competitive. These steps have included reductions in the general corporate income tax rate from 16.5 per cent in 2001 to 10.5 percent today (with a planned further reduction to 10 per cent by 2011). British Columbia has also eliminated its capital taxes and reduced property taxes, especially for major industries. . . " And as part of the 2008 carbon-tax package, Mintz adds, "corporate income tax rate was reduced to 10.5 per cent, effective 1 January 2010 and the rate will be reduced further to 10 per cent, effective January 1, 2011."
In addition, Mintz notes that the federal corporate income tax rate has also been reduced, with further cuts planned. The federal tax rate on corporations was 19 per cent in 2009, and "will decline to 15 per cent by 2012 (although the federal government will be phasing out certain tax preferences as it reduces the tax rate during this time)." Mintz, echoing the Campbell line, suggests that all these reductions in corporate income taxes "will further enhance British Columbia's investment climate."
It's too bad that the Campbell government didn't ask Mintz to evaluate the impact of past tax cuts on investment and employment creation. Had he done so however, he would have been obliged to conclude that investment and employment in British Columbia have stagnated and that recently, despite all those tax cuts, jobs and capital spending have fallen sharply. Corporations are making profits in B.C. But they are clearly not reinvesting them here in this province.
From 2001 to 2009, Statistics Canada data indicates that private investment in machinery and equipment in B.C. grew by only $166.1 million. That's an annual growth rate of just 0.26 per cent per year. This is what all those tax cuts have actually coaxed out of corporations.
The disappointing results of the tax-cut strategy can be seen in both the tepid growth of output and the slow pace of job creation. The Liberal record in these departments actually trails that of the previous government. While the New Democrats were in office between 1991 and 2001, manufacturing output grew by 88 per cent. Excluding the forest sector, growth was 106 per cent during that decade. Since then, manufacturing growth fell to just one per cent, while non-forest sector manufacturing saw growth of just 30 per cent.
Job creation doesn't seem to have benefited much from all those tax cuts, either. Total employment across the B.C. economy grew by 2.8 per cent per year from 2001 to 2008, says BC Statistics. That's slightly higher than the 2.4 per cent annual average under the NDP. But with the loss of over 150,000 jobs in 2009, that average is now down to 2.1 per cent per year.
In manufacturing, the record under the Liberals' low-corporate-tax regime is even worse. While manufacturing employment grew by 1.6 per cent per year under the NDP, it fell by 0.5 per cent per year from 2001 to 2008. And with the loss of nearly 25,000 manufacturing jobs in 2009, the province has now bled an average of 1.9 per cent of its manufacturing jobs each year Gordon Campbell has been Premier.
B.C.'s forest sector on the ropes
Nowhere can the Campbell tax cuts' impact on employment and investment be better seen than in the forest sector, B.C.'s largest source of employment and export earnings when Campbell became premier. Investment in solid-wood manufacturing averaged over 30 per cent more per year under the province's former NDP government than under the current government, according to Statistics Canada data. In the NDP's nine years in government, annual investment in wood manufacturing and pulp and paper averaged $845.2 million. But in the first seven years under Gordon Campbell's Liberals that fell to $648.7 million, a difference of 30.2 per cent.
Investment in wood manufacturing in 2008 was nearly $80 million less than in 2001, a fall of 6.1 per cent per year. In fact, investment in the sector has fallen every year since 2005. And the overall forest sector today employs 36,600 fewer people than in 2001, a decline of 41.3 per cent. Even without the effects of the recession, by 2008, the forest industry had already lost 23,700 jobs under Campbell's tax regime.
As Campbell's tax cuts have failed to deliver the surge of investment promised, another key to B.C.'s future has flagged as well: productivity. B.C.'s performance is "even worse" than Canada's lackluster performance, according to a 2008 study (see sidebar).
A failed policy adventure
Since 2001, the citizens of our province have essentially paid corporations billions of dollars to invest in this province and create jobs. In 2000-01 for instance, B.C. collected personal income tax that came to 4.5 per cent of GDP, according to Iglika Ivanova of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. By 2008-09, that fell to about three per cent of GDP. The loss in personal income tax revenue of 1.5 per cent of GDP amounts to roughly $3 billion per year (B.C.'s GDP is just under $200 billion). Wealthy taxpayers got a vastly disproportionate share of those benefits -- individuals with incomes of over $250,000 a year constitute just one-half of one per cent of all taxpayers but they got 12.5 per cent of the 2001-02 tax cut and 2.5 per cent of the 2007-08 cuts.
In addition says Ivanova, in 2000-01, B.C. collected corporate income tax of about 0.8 per cent of GDP. In 2008-09, corporate tax revenues are estimated to be one per cent of GDP, but they're projected to fall to 0.5 per cent of the GDP by 2011-02. This would represent a loss of 0.3 per cent of GDP, or just under $600 million per year. The difference, she notes, "is approximately the revenue lost -- if we collected as much taxes as we did in 2001, we'd now have an extra $3.6 billion per year."
That's in addition to the cost of the federal corporate tax cuts, which CUPE senior economist Toby Sanger says will require Canadians to forego $8.6 billion in revenues this year, rising to almost $15 billion in 2013-14. And for companies based in the United States, corporate tax cuts below a combined federal-provincial rate of 35 per cent don't even benefit the companies -- they go instead to the U.S. treasury, so there isn't even a theoretical reason why corporate income tax cuts would be an incentive to invest in Canada.
These tax expenditures, essentially payments to corporations and the wealthy in the expectation that they will use their tax windfalls invest and create jobs here, have been provided by a provincial government that obviously believes that lower taxes equal more jobs and investment. But corporations haven't delivered.
Premier's empty promises
What we have in fact is the "three amigos" scenario writ large. In 2003, the CEOs of three major coastal forest company were locked in difficult contract negotiations with the Industrial Wood and Allied Workers of Canada, which since merged with United Steelworkers. The CEOs of Interfor, Weyerhaeuser and TimberWest launched a public relations blitz, loudly promising communities that, if the companies were to get their way with their employees and a few other concessions from the government (market-based stumpage, new laws governing land use and forest practices), then corporations would invest a billion dollars in new mills and create thousands of jobs.
The Campbell government quickly delivered. But the companies failed to live up their end of the deal, ultimately closing many of their B.C. mills. They spent hundreds of millions of dollars, not here, but in the U.S.
Now we can see this wasn't at all an isolated case. It's the pattern for Campbell's approach to the economy. Give corporations what they say they need, get out of the way, let markets work their magic and the wheels will turn, the cash will roll in.
Speaking at the Truck Loggers' Association convention in 2002, Campbell said his plan "is backed up by a belief that people in this province are energetic and creative, and that if we allow them to compete, they will win." The actual result in the forest sector has been a wasteful and destructive race to the bottom in a largely contracted-out and deregulated industry where,instead of investing and creating employment, most companies divested, especially in manufacturing. Now they increasingly rely on raw-log exports rather than sawmills, pulp and paper or other value-added plants.
In that same speech, Campbell said: "We are going to have an industry that is a cornerstone of economic growth and prosperity. If we don't have a forest industry that's vital -- a forest industry that attracts investment, a forest industry that sustains jobs -- we are not going to have the resources we need to sustain excellent health care, excellent education and other public services."
Certainly, Campbell was wrong about revitalization of the forest industry. On his watch the sector has tanked; in fact, it tanked well before the global economic crisis, as the numbers indicate. But he was right about the consequences. With declining revenues from the resource sector, B.C.’s economy, government sector and civil society will all be severely impacted.
Revenues, services, communities in decline
The process is already well advanced, of course. Last year's budget forecast $387 million in forest resource revenues. The revised estimate in this year's fiscal update was $345 million. Ministry of Forests officials indicate the actual figure is much lower. That revenue is supposed to provide forestry's contribution to health care, education and other vital services. But current revenue compares very poorly to past years. In 2001, for instance, forest resource revenues were $1.12 billion. And worse, while in the last year of the NDP forest revenues were more than double ministry spending, the cost of managing the forests now exceeds forest revenues. Last year ministry expenditures were $641 million, 53.8 per cent above revenues.
Is it any wonder minister Pat Bell was in the front of the line for the big budget axe?
B.C.'s declining prosperity can also be seen in lumber exports, historically the main driver of our economy. From 2001 to 2008, lumber exports fell from $6.5 billion to $3.6 billion. Last year they fell even more: 2009 lumber exports are 58 per cent below 2001. When the industry is healthy, those revenues pay employee wages and provide a return on investment. In turn, employee and company spending helps our communities to thrive, puts kids through school and allows people to retire in dignity. They also pay the taxes that finance our public services, community organizations and leisure activities. When the incomes generated by lumber exports fall, British Columbians are poorer, both individually and as a society.
This decline in resource revenues is not the result of bad luck, although the current government would have us to think so. No, it's the result of a concerted policy of allowing corporations in the forest industry and other sectors to pay very little in the way of taxes, do pretty much what they like and ignore the need to reinvest back into communities in the form of new means of production, more research and development or improved productivity.
Corporations disinvesting in British Columbians
And ultimately, it won't be corporations that pay the biggest price of these years of neglect. In the B.C. forest industry, many of those firms are already disinvesting from this province in the apparent anticipation of getting out. Weyerhaeuser has sold most of its forest lands and licenses and is mostly out already. Interfor has nearly completely abandoned the coast, while investing millions in Washington and Oregon. TimberWest shut down all its manufacturing operations and operates as a raw-log exporter and real estate concern. Just five B.C. firms invested more than one and a half times as much in solid wood production in the U.S. between 2002 and 2006 as the entire B.C. forest industry invested here during the same highly-profitable period. Even with pulp and paper investment included, those five companies invested $3.3 billion in the U.S., while overall B.C. forest-sector investment totaled just $3 billion.
Sadly, the losers will be the people of this province. We're already paying -- not just in foregone tax revenue but also in the form of declining job opportunities, falling revenues, service cuts in health care, education and other important programs and a general deterioration in our communities, neighbourhoods and living standards.
If the Campbell government's addled approach to economics is allowed to continue, we will see much, much worse before we see better. In fact, we'll keep on seeing worse until we demand that government be more than just a cheerleader for the private sector or a machine for funneling tax dollars from us to them. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
- Appeal court upholds ruling on protection of orca habitat
- Foreign takeover score is 14,218 to two calculates Mel Hurtig, who speaks Saturday
- Abbott blames teachers' union, hints at legislation
- Greens exaggerating fracking fears 'to control you': Santorum
- Prime Minister Harper mixes oil with human rights on visit to China
- Civil jury finds former BC premier Vander Zalm guilty of defamation
- Vancouver theatre runs down curtain on section of BC's outdated liquor laws
- BC Premier Clark to replace throne speech with radio appearance
- 'The Kids Are All Right'
- 'Leave Your Shoes On'
- Glaciers, BC Hydro's Melting 'Batteries'
- Frankie Rose Makes Life Tougher for Journalists
- Too Much Energy Used to Mine, Move Bitumen Says BC Firm
- Becoming the Ethical Hunter
- Shadow Workers of the World, Revolt!
- Could SOPA Pervade Canadian Copyright Law?
- Would You Buy a Used Car from These Libs?
- Three Ryan Gosling Pickup Techniques that Don't Work in Real Life
- Shadow Workers of the World, Revolt!
- Economist Calls Gateway Pipeline an Inflationary 'Threat'
- Bill Rees' Last Lecture
- Too Much Energy Used to Mine, Move Bitumen Says BC Firm
- Is Canada Ignoring Signs of a Coming Economic Collapse?
- How First Nations Are Gearing Up for Legal Battle Against Gateway
- Harper in China
- Eleven Oily Questions for Every MP
- Remembering Lloyd Dykk's Wit, Generosity and Superb Prose
- BC Child Care Advocates in Geneva to Complain to UN
- BC, You Love You
- Shadow Workers of the World, Revolt!
- Who Pays Huge Power Bills for Clark's Gas Plants?
- Make It the Canadian Webcasting Corporation
- Harper in China
- When the Prize Is a Chance to Toil on BC's Farms
- Three Ryan Gosling Pickup Techniques that Don't Work in Real Life
- Would You Buy a Used Car from These Libs?
- Foreign Trade Zones Eyed for Vancouver, Prince Rupert, Prince George
- Skating into 2012, More Resolutions
- Scientists unveil bold new definition of addiction
- The most hellish ‘internships’: China sends 100,000 teens to work for a pittance at Foxconn making gadgets for Apple, others
- World Press Photo Contest: Editor’s choice pictures of the day
- Banks come first in a Greek rescue plan
- We’re more unequal than you think
- Cambodia launched restaurants for vultures
- Flavored vodka: sign of the imminent apocalypse?
- With Obama’s new foreclosure deal big banks win again
68
Login or register to post comments
Barryeng
1 year ago
Dysfunctional economics
"If the Campbell government's addled approach to economics is allowed to continue, we will see much, much worse before we see better." This is the truest thing I have seen written in several years.
The only thing in BC that has steadily risen since Campbell took over is the unemployment rate (currently over 11% in my area), and that doesn't include those forest workers who have long run out of benefits.
I doesn't take a degree in economics to realize that without a decent income in BC, those of us left in BC, spend less, and therefore the corporations make less money. Unfortunately That will not change under Campbell's disfunctional economic policies.
Takuan
1 year ago
Campbell's policies are not dysfunctional
they are peforming exactly as intended.
cfvua
1 year ago
Unemployment
Even in oil and gas and now wind energy the Campbell club has made sure that profits and jobs flow out of province. For such a bunch of self proclaimed business geniuses, they have sure done a dismal effort on job preservation. The very first thing that Campbell said he was going to work on election night. What a failure. Hansen could sure use the income taxes all those wage earners from Alberta are sending home and the PST that should be paid on out of province equipment. Now with the added carbon tax and the HST the cross border problem will escalate, not improve.
Time for recall.
Waste a few hundred thousand flying friends around to announce an environmental assessment???
Too much spare time.
Takuan
1 year ago
job preservation
has nothing to do with business genius. Business genius is making stacks of money YOU get to keep. Screw everybody else.
The thieves on top are looking after themselves, not society.
Frank
1 year ago
Kim Pollock
Nice to read a well-researched article with a clear thesis. Great job.
Van Isle
1 year ago
The day after last years
The day after last years budget speech Hanson gave a talk to the Vancouver board of trade and bragged that the corporate taxes in BC were the lowest in any OECD jurisdiction. If Gordon Campbell and Colin Hanson are so wise and smart on how the HST will be good for BC, how come they didn't introduce the tax years ago? This article is perfect for showing how the Liberals are just a bunch of screw ups. Just wondering if they could be charged with fraud?
Fiat lux
1 year ago
The problem is not the
The problem is not the Campbell, or the dozens of similarly acting governments over the globe, but the crap that's being taught in our universities and promoted by PR agencies like the CD Howe and Fraser Institutes, as economics, causing the biggest crime wave in human history.
As many of us have been predicting and writing about, in my case for 25 years, the whole fraudulent, corrupt system is a pseudo religious exercise to bolster the powers of an aristocracy to screw the world and take all.
1. Competition does not reduce, but increases both the real physical and and even the imaginary, monetary costs. In the approx 35 years, since this garbage theory was forced on the world, living costs increased by over 1000% and environmental damage, destitution, homelessness and illness epidemics went through the roof.
2. Nobody knows how much the multinational corporate mafia is getting paid into offshore tax havens for goods they're stealing from us. There's no way to check this, therefore the taxes they're paying are bad jokes to begin with.
3. Investment doesn't create jobs, resources and their public control does. Monetary investment is a racket. Giving away our resources to others is a stupid crime, the sale of resources is not and income. When you have resources you have money and investment. When you have only money, you have nothing. As Europe found it out after WW2, when people had tons of worthless monies, but nothing to buy with it.
4. The historical, main purpose of ideology based economic theories has always been the covering up of the real costs and transferring them on other sectors.
5. The presently used monetary definition of "economic efficiency" is a fraud, because it overrules the unbreakable laws of physical efficiency and the consequences are daily growing ecological destruction, climate change, destitution and violence.
6. In short, people and politicians who believe in and are enforcing the present neoclassical market economic theory, are either stupid, or bought crooks.
7. Capitalism has become the biggest collectivizer of the world's economy in a few hands, far in excess of what Stalin's communists have ever been able to dream about, with the same devastating results, but on a much larger, worldwide scale.
Ed Deak, Big Lake
Illahie
1 year ago
It would be a mistake to think
It would be a mistake to think that the Campbell government is acting in the best interests of British Columbia and British Columbians.
The Campbell government very much wants to transfer the tax burden from corporations to individual wage earners.
What is best for the province has nothing to do with it.
blackie
1 year ago
lies, damn lies, & statistics
Interesting piece, but there's a few points.
1. If you rolled back the clock and cancelled all those tax reductions, do you think all those dismal investment numbers would have been better? If so, by what rationale would an industrial sector -- any sector -- increase its level of investment because taxes were higher.
2. That 2001 - 2008 slump in the forest industry (the article is correct, forestry was already in the tank before the recession hit) masks what was a huge boom in lumber exports in 2004, followed by the bottom falling out of both prices and demand. The biggest factors in that were a drop in US housing starts, the rising value of the Cdn dollar, and the US tariffs followed by the infamous US softwood lumber agreement (by all means blame Campbell for that, although Harper was the main culprit). Tax levels played almost no role in that one. The effect of the beetle kill is also ignored.
3. Growth in oil and gas investment gets no mention. Why not? It has grown consistently, and tripled between 2001-2008 to $8 billion, while contributing $4 billion a year in resource revenues. Would those numbers have been higher without the tax breaks and drilling incentives?
The trouble with lambasting ANY tax initiative -- raising them or lowering them -- is you'll never know what the impact would be if you did the opposite. This article argues that the tax cuts didn't deliver, and throws statistics (selected ones of course) to prove the point. But without the full context, they are meaningless.
Frank
1 year ago
blackie
Yet your side trumpets tax breaks for corporations as automatically a good thing and hold press conferences trumpeting all the jobs and revenue that will come our way. It never happens and most people now just tune it out. This article tells people what they already feel they know.
jimmy_laroux
1 year ago
Employment...
This is misleading. BC's population also grew much faster under the NDP. It would be better to compare employment rate.
Good article otherwise.
jimmy_laroux
1 year ago
@ blackie
Yeah, that's the point of the article.
Commodity prices were at an all-time high 2003 - 2008. This is what drove mining and oil & gas extraction in BC (though of course taxes and subsidies no doubt had an effect). These industries have been severely affected by commodity price drops in the last couple of years (e.g. Teck Cominco).
This is not a good question. You should ask "why would people invest despite taxes being higher?"
cfvua
1 year ago
Do the math
Mr Blackie.
The NET numbers from oil and gas would be higher without the gifts or subsidies you call incentives and drilling programs if the government would simply ensure that ALL PST due was paid and all jobs that BC residents could do were being done thereby creating an income tax flow back to the province instead of into Alberta. Why is it such a problem for Campbell to preserve BC jobs especially in oil and gas. The revenues are more to do with the fact companies have been able through improved drilling and stimulation methods extract gas from shale formations that weren't possible to produce before. Think about Quebec and Pennsylvania who have no incentives. There are reports of huge levels of activity in Pennsylvania. It is because of where the formation is located, not about subsidies, but I guess if you are a talkative producer and can get a give it away premier to listen anything goes. Any good liberal would sooner credit....errr...incentive...err..subsidize themselves though. The 2.5 to 1 dollar "royalty credit" is a sham and the government's lack of accounting proves it. I can't wait until a Will Mcmartin, Andrew Mcleod, Bill Tieleman or other good bloodhound picks up the (money trail) on that one.
mary jane
1 year ago
corporate welfare
gordo or any politian that gives big business tax breaks before they prove the will invest in bc (or else where) should be charged double the taxes.
Responsible corporate citizens are needed not companies that damage the land then leave with the funds. The people are the owners of the province are lefte without jobs, medical coverage, education and care for those unable to care for themselves. SHAME on the cheepsakes.
Fiat lux
1 year ago
It is a common mistake to
It is a common mistake to blame only governments for corporate tax cuts and the inevitable cost transfers on the public. They're only using scriptural justifications taught in our universities as "economics".
The government is getting its orders from the corporations through the Fraser Inst. who have been advocating the total elimination of all taxes from corporations since they were set up, as part of the corporate propaganda machine, in the mid 70s.
The justification is the same garbage being used now to sell the HST: When the taxes are removed from corporations, they'll lower their prices, or as Hansen boasted it on TV "People will love the HST, because it will put more money into their pockets"
Has anybody ever known any price reductions in the stores since the minimum wage part timer slave labour racket became fashion?Prices are going up every day for no logical reasons, except to beat the stockmarkets.
The stockmarkets would never permit any price reductions and we're the victims of their insatiable profit demands.
So, when you blame governments, blame also the professors who brainwash students with this nonsensical theories.
Ed Deak.
dave49
1 year ago
The lower mainland economy is shrinking
In spite of our whacked-out real estate market where the AVERAGE price of a single family home in Vancouver recently passed the $1 million point, the lower mainland economy is shrinking.
I've been doing some networking lately and the head of an advertising company told me that there is half the business there was 15 years ago - it has been a steady decline. I mentioned this view to a senior exec at an energy company and he acknowledged the decline, but said little more.
The Vancouver economy is shrinking, and all these tax cuts have done nothing to halt the decline. But there are lots of resources for circuses and Campbells's office has an army of PR people to spin the molecules out of any fact or story.
Toobad
1 year ago
Why would someone want to raise the HST to 15%?
http://bciconcoclast.blogspot.com/2009/12/12-hst-is-too-low-should-have-been-15.html
illahie.blogspot.com/
Toobad
1 year ago
Why indeed?
illahie.blogspot.com/
Toobad
1 year ago
Toobad!
http://illahie.blogspot.com/
CanadianLatitude
1 year ago
That is a lot of tax cuts
That is a lot of tax cuts but wages nor the lowest min wage in Canada has yet to go up...Won't the HST shift more tax burden from corps to the people too?
What would be the advice to young people starting out? Move to the middle of nowhere, build a shack and live off the land and under the radar?
There is really no future for the vast majority of people in Canada or BC anymore. What is sick is the people have turned into sheep and won't help themselves. pathetic.
Takuan
1 year ago
if BC becomes a playground for the rich
it doesn't need a real economy. Just a few serfs.
realisticman
1 year ago
Worst Since the Depression
Who's doing better?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_crisis_of_2007%E2%80%932010
damngrumpy
1 year ago
ruined businesses
Yes forestry is a disaster after the tax laws and the over all policies of this government. If you want to see another industry struggling to survive look no further than the tree fruit industry. The government has allowed tree fruits to survive barely, We are watching an industry worth 130 million a year disappear. Forestry is an industry that has been nearly destroyed for the want of action. Unfortunately international companies have come in to live off the scraps of what is left. This government will create a lot more in the way of economic tears if left in power. Their tax laws will mean forestry and small businesses will join the ranks of being sunset industries.
mariner
1 year ago
This article is just one
This article is just one facet of the Campbell circus. This is only part of the material we know about - along with some other items.
What about all the other work/changes/cuts etc. that we don't know about yet ?????
As has been proven time after time, Gordon Campbell just cannot be trusted - he would lie just as easily as he would smile or grimace - your choice.
Without question, Campbell and his Liberal party have made such major changes, that it will be doubtful if British Columbia will ever fully recover. The very sad part is that half of the provinces (a qualitative guess here) assets would have been sold off and there will be nothing to show for it. The winners of course, will be the large companies (multinational or otherwise) that Campbell takes his orders from and to whom he panders to. The losers being all the working folk that pay taxes so big businesses can rip them off - a viscious circle.
Nauseating, but unfortunately, a fact of life.
"It seems the worst is yet to come - Rafe Mair"
Thx
Marysue52
1 year ago
tax cuts for the rich and corporate (esp. foreigners)
Fiat Lux is right...We need a sustainable system based on the reality of a finite planet. We have too many people for most species to survive, including ourselves. Only ancient, methane-breathers will survive. Maybe. Most people are so ignorant and too stubborn to learn. They don't even want to think and are too lazy to make changes. They'd rather turn on the TV and watch a continuous array of gladiatorial sports or Kenny and Spenny >ulp<.
circle A
1 year ago
"YOU DON`T HAVE TO WORRY"
Thats a direct quote from a a manager at the now closed, but was for some 100 years a profitable sawmill,weyerhauser white pine division, he and i were having a friendly chat when I was on site one morning,I am a private contractor and small business owner who had lost lots of other sawmill customers, for example, eburne, domans silvertree, domans vancouver,northwest hardwoods,all gone.further to our conversation he told me flat out that "this mill does not pay tariffs on its procucts because of an exemption on cedar and this mill makes money". well, not enuff to satisfy its american owners because the day their agreement for keeping the mill open as part of their purchase agreement arrived they closed it. All these changes have very negatively affected working people and small business, and to have to listen to this 'dismal decade" horseshit from our corporate media, well i just hope lots of the foolish sheep who voted for campbell get what they deserve.
RickW
1 year ago
R/M old man....
Saskatchewan?
http://www.finance.gov.sk.ca/budget/
Polakite
1 year ago
So, uh huh, tax hikes encourage investment...
Yeah, and... if that's true...
Water is dry.
Mary Polak is ugly, homophobic and dumb.
Sean Holman is a corporate lackey.
Gordon Campbell is a socialist.
Just another day at TheTyee.ca, the BCNDP Eye Online.
HA HA HA HA HA
Whatever Kim is smoking or drinking, DON'T!
Toobad
1 year ago
Yup
Cut taxes for corporate shell companies and slash funding for EIBI and suicide hotlines..
Priority of the deranged!
http://powellriverpersuader.blogspot.com/2010/04/gordon-campbell-hates-children.html
dave49
1 year ago
Takuan, we're already there...
"if BC becomes a playground for the rich
it doesn't need a real economy. Just a few serfs."
During the Olympics I saw an item in the Real state weekly which was not available on their website. Basically, we will become a second home for the wealthy of China. They like the stable Canadian banking system, they like Vancouver for location and amenities, and feel at home with so many Chinese here.
dave49
1 year ago
Polakite
Polakite, why do you waste your time here? You don't add anything of value to the discussions.
Are you paid to do this or do you do it out of dedication to some conservative cause or ideal?
Camero409
1 year ago
Polakite and Blackie
Your comments are surely meant for Liberal... er sorry I meant Conservatives in sheep's clothing calling themselves LIbERalS in this province. Tax breaks are not so corporations can "invest" in BC they are only meant for the directors, executives and share holders to "invest" in their bank accounts.
Religious doctrine, such as that espoused by Polakite, are meant to control easily manipulated masses through fear. This is what religious freaks are doing in the so called heartland of the US and other religious hot spots like the Fraser Valley.
If any of these masses had a clue they would easily see they are being manipulated for the glory and power of the church.
So, corporations make the rich richer, churches control the masses through fear. Both are designed to preserve and enhance the status quo and work hand in hand. Wake up!
freebear
1 year ago
Happy Earth Day!
We're f*&ked!
Polakite
1 year ago
Why am I here?
Dedication to the cause.
Also here to provide balance.
Stop bringing up religion, it makes YOU look bad when you do it first.
Enuf said.
MGS
1 year ago
MGS
His tax cuts were never meant work as at the same time he was cutting taxes he was giving away the resources, cutting services,adding service charges, offloading costs to municipalities who have raised taxes and etc. This exactly what he wants. A broken down electorate that big buisness can take advantage of. I've said before that our jobs are being done by some one else somwhere else with our electricity and yet we need another power project so we can be raped one more time. Stay tune as it will only get worse!
gregd
1 year ago
Preaching to the converted
Excellent article. Unfortunately, none of this will see the light of day in the corporate owned mainstream media. We can't let the truth interfere with the corporate propaganda.
jimmy_laroux
1 year ago
@ Polakite
Too true, too true! This is the first sensible thing you've written on any thread at this site.
Polakite
1 year ago
@jimmy_laroux
That was sarcasm.
Here's from the unofficial BC Political dictionary:
Polakite: A supporter of Mary Polak, libertarian extraordinaire and Christy Clark, v 2.0. Polakites are known for fiesty fights, crazy comments, powerful punditry and tenacious talk.
jimmy_laroux
1 year ago
@ Polakite
A failed attemp at it, perhaps?
And their ugliness, homophobia, and stupidity as well, just like their namesake? Or is this also sarcasm?
jimmy_laroux
1 year ago
@ Polakite
Where does the article state or imply this?
TTIOT
1 year ago
Fictional Truth Mitigated by Untruths
Yes the truth is out there however it is strategic thinking way beyond the comprehension of the common mortal.
As Zeus ruled the gods campbell rules the goofs in a relm where 2+2 = whatever you want, whever you want and for as long as he wants.
best not to confuse the facts with the truth or is that the trruth with facts...ah it does not matter.
Polakite
1 year ago
@jimmy_laroux
You're sarcastic, re: def of Polakite.
I waded in to make the point that tax hikes are NOT good for B.C. investment, period. It's common sense.
jimmy_laroux
1 year ago
@ Polakite
Wow, good one!
You didn't make any point. You were just trolling, as usual.
That's not what you wrote. You deliberately misinterpreted the article. Nowhere does state or imply that "tax hikes encourage investment".
It might be amongst the disciples of, to quote you, an "ugly, homophobic and dumb" Liberal MLA. But is it true? Tax cuts don't seem to have helped much in the case of the forest industry in BC.
DJT
1 year ago
All is not lost!!
All is not lost! The HST will (eventually) result in lower prices to consumers!! (insert laughter here)...
BDD63
1 year ago
TAX THIS
The only businesses that should be getting any sort of tax break are ones that have their head office in the province of B.C. Any of the others should pay through the nose from the benefits they derive from the resources of this stable and wealthy province. If they don't like it then give the C.E.O. a one way economy airfare to set up shop somewhere else. Perhaps North Korea? Haiti is looking for investment. And I think Antarctica has no corporate taxes at all. And as for Mary Polak, I bet the Surrey school board wishes it still had the one million bucks she wasted going to court to try and get a children's book banned. Surely she is smart enough to know it would have been cheaper to burn it.
freebear
1 year ago
Campbell's Tax Cuts Failed to Work
But still will be touted as the solution next time!
Luck
1 year ago
Nice to see some people in BC are thinking
The large majority of people in BC are to busy with their own lfe to see they are being ripped off and becoming more and more a third world example.
Most people won't admit they voted for these criminals in P.G. Somebody did!!!
Get over it and use the recall legislation to get them out. Just stand up and be people instead of livestock.
The people who are fighting the HST understand freedom of choice and democracy. Those who complain about people standing up for their rights should know better.
If only 40% of canadians get out and vote then you get what you deserve right.
Think about this, who gave our federal gov the right to have canada taken from peace making role to come fight with us. There goes canada credibilty.
Lets face it we need to stand up and let our governments know at every level that they work for us. If we keep repeating that to ourselves then maybe, maybe we will have the balls to make changes that work for the people of canada.
realisticman
1 year ago
Embrassaing
I feel for Kim. It must be really embarrassing to have to write articles like this and just pretend that the World Recession and the collapse of the US house building industry of 2008/09/10 just never happened.
G West
1 year ago
Oh I don't know - embarrassment is a relative thing
Seems to me I recall someone who posts a fair bit around here who couldn't believe that globalization wasn't the absolute bee knees - same guy who, when the rest of us here told him what was coming called us all pessimistic idiots - or words to that effect.
crankypants
1 year ago
Re tax cuts
Actually Campbell's tax cuts worked exactly as he planned, just not how he said they would work. These tax cuts helped fill the coffers of those businesses that financially support the BC Liberal Party at the expense of the taxpayer. And the forthcoming HST will just do more of the same.
Frank
1 year ago
GWest
I thought r'man has claimed just under a kazillion times that there was no recession in Canada?
Regardless, Campbell has done badly whether there's a recession on or not.
realisticman
1 year ago
Frank
Of course, Frank.
But, what I did say was the US home construction crash, which is, of course, is where most of the BC wood was sold to. Let's not forget the collapse of the pulp industry too, also the US being the BIG buyer.
Some even call it the Depression. Worst since the 1930's.
Nevertheless, Canada is back in business and now interest rates are going to be raised to slow down our booming economy!
crankypants
1 year ago
realisticman
Tell your pile of cow dung to the ever increasing lineups at the food bank. The recession may be over for a few select industries such as the financial sector, but until the unemployment rate recedes substantially the numbers quoted by those in power are much ado about nothing. And I am talking about full time decent paying jobs, not part time minimum wage garbage.
All this good news is even before the HST becomes a reality. Then even the part time minimum wage jobs will start disappearing as many marginal businesses either close down or cut jobs in order to possibly save their livlihoods.
You can live in your fantasy world if you wish, but don't try to con the rest of us into it.
realisticman
1 year ago
You don't have to be cwankie
" ...analysts see an extended boom ..."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/lumber-prices-at-highest-in-three-years/article1538702/
G West
1 year ago
Not true R/Man
You were a full feathered Technicolor promoter of the joys of globalization and the absolute impossibility that things were going to go pear shaped.
I know it.
Frank knows it and so does anyone else who has read your comments here over the past 5 years.
Don't be so bashful!
I offered you several opportunities to join me at the increasingly-popular soup kitchen where I volunteer and you declined.
I now see that another soup kitchen here in the Provincial Capital is in danger of closing because of a funding shortfall of about 100G per year.
Perhaps the much touted boom recovery hasn't yet 'extended' to the people who are already victims of the greed and selfishness you (and the Globe's Business writers) seem to find such comfort in.
realisticman
1 year ago
What's not true?
The bust or the boom? Which do you suggest I missed?
I know you saw it coming. I guess you shorted GM and made a bundle.
Talking about Hungary, did you see that thrashing those socialists were given yesterday?
"Hungary's conservative opposition party Fidesz has won a two-thirds general election victory, second round results have confirmed.
With 99.22% of votes counted, the party had nearly 68% of the popular vote and 263 of the 386 seats in parliament, the national election committee said. ...
Fidesz promised to create jobs, lower taxes and reduce bureaucracy. ...
The entire leadership of the Socialist party, who had governed for the past eight years, tendered its resignation after the results were revealed."
Honorable, I'd say.
realisticman
1 year ago
Just in Case you don't believe.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8642456.stm
Bumpy Road:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1984570,00.html
G West
1 year ago
R/Man
I find that comment personal AND offensive.
I don't own any stocks or bonds and I don't speculate on the market for ethical and moral reasons. I make my contributions to my fellow human beings directly. The other way - the trickle down method - doesn't seem to work.
It would be entirely hypocritical to do otherwise...
But why not let's talk about Ireland shall we? After all, that little emerald tiger was the exemplar you were pushing very hard right here at Tyee not so long ago.
I'm sure Ed Deak will have something to say about the situation in his old homeland - so I'll defer any comment to him on the subject of Hungary. I’m much more familiar with the cock-up the right wing is making of things in the Czech Republic.
However, for the moment perhaps we could just deal with the failure of the CEO's little tax cutting program right here in British Columbia if that's all right with you.
realisticman
1 year ago
Ireland
"The bank's cash raising plans also involve a possible change to the government's stake in the bank.
Bank of Ireland plans to convert some of the government's preference shares - which give it certain privileges over ordinary shareholders - into ordinary stock.
That is expected to see the government's stake increase to up to 36.5%."
Government's taking over. Problem solved, wouldn't you say?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8643441.stm
G West
1 year ago
BC happens to be the subject - as mentioned above
Still, I'll reiterate, for the moment perhaps we could just deal with the failure of the CEO's little tax cutting program right here in British Columbia if that's all right with you.
My friends from Ireland say that there's a lot more to solve than just the bank's problems.
A very great deal more.
Just as happened in the US, Irish banks invested heavily in securitized assets and, just as in the US the financial sector assumed a leading role in the Irish economy. Since the recession began the Irish economy has contracted massively erasing the economic gains of the past several years. Unemployment is rampant and the GDP is shrinking – not to mention the amount of toxic assets still on balance sheets.
The Emerald Tiger has both massive unemployment and social distress; the collapse in revenues has driven the nation's budget deficit through the roof. With expenditures of 55 billion euros and revenues falling below 35 billion euros, Ireland is facing the same dilemma confronting a growing number of nations, including the United States and, with 1.47 dollars of debt for every 1 dollar of income here, Canada.
Problem far from solved.
morechatter
1 year ago
BC has been railroaded by Campbell's Liberals
In more ways than one as CN is enjoying record breadking profits in the Billions at the expense of British Columbians. Campbell said the BC railway was a loser but what he really meant is British Columbians are going to be a bunch of losers but no worry they will never catch on!
morechatter
1 year ago
The Economy is Expected to Slow Down
Where has the growth been? Selling off Canada's natural resources, black oil, along with power to US as a major contributors to rising dollar and manufacturers in the red. I don't know if Off-shore drilling was such a good idea with the lastest uncontrollable spill that is leeking into the Missippi. No worry Oil Compaines are studing on how to possibly stop this major leek.
Car sells where up along with home sells as immigration packs them in as house prices raise the roof. However the newly arrived Canadians are not part and parcel of the unemployed as one has to give them the opportunity to get a job for those who where not already employed.
Small business is hurting and especially in BC and across Canada without much hope for the futher as economy is now expected to slow down. Oh yes banks made a killing on foreign investsments. And if a great deal of money can be made by Banks what is stopping them from dirty dealing? Canada's bank don't want to play nice and want to tax. And why should Banks as in win, win situation if you lose they win, and if they lose they win. Amazing!
morechatter
1 year ago
Banks Don't Pay Taxes
Banks don't pay their taxes Canadians do, and Banks don't take risks Canadians do, and Canadian Banks don't want to join in Tax with US to avoid future finanicial crisis but will have to come around I'm certain of it.
TYRONE
1 year ago
SICK TO MY STOMACH AND GETTING REALLY ANGRY!
WHAT DOES IT TAKE FOR PEOPLE IN THIS PROVINCE TO WAKE UP TO REALITY AND THROW THE BUMS OUT!
I FIND IT ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE, THAT NEARLY 70% OF PEOPLE QUESTIONED ABOUT HST APPARENTLY DID NOT KNOW WHAT HST STOOD FOR, MUCH LESS, WHAT IT MEANS TO THE AVERAGE PERSON!
WE ARE POOR ALREADY AND NOW WE GET ROBBED EVEN MORE.
WAKE UP, PEOPLE, AND FIGHT FOR YOUR SURVIVAL -
IT IS LATER THAN YOU THINK!
SAY NO TO HST AND AT THE SAME TIME GET READY FOR MASS RECALL!
refedmel
1 year ago
Failed taxation
What a scam! Liberals give corporations a tax cut and the NDP give the people tax increases. Either way the goal is to milk the sheople and it seems to work
as the sheople ping pong between right and left. Ah that definition of insanity; "doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result". The only answer is to install a government that cuts taxes to the people, limits government to a small role and then watch the corporations flock to us, hoping to collect on the earning power of the people, and, corporate taxes wont mean a thing. "right and left" is nothing but a shills game of keeping the people poor and stupid, BREAK THE CYCLE, A POX ON ALL OF THEM.
Soundguy
1 year ago
Ed Deak for Premier!
Hi Ed,
Could you please run for leader of the NDP? Your comments are continuously some of the most well thought out posts I've ever read. We need more people like you in positions of power.
Whaddya say?
Martin
1 year ago
Ridiculous idea to raise taxes
I know the United Steelworkers represent the forest workers, but the sad truth is no matter whether taxes are cut or not, the forest industry has a dismal future for many reasons. Paper demand, for example, is plummeting thanks to the internet age. Beetles continue to chew away at the forests, doing more damage. And today's modern mills employ very few workers with the new technologies -- it's no longer a labour-intensive industry.
The forest sector is a sunset industry, here and elsewhere. Young people should look for a career somewhere else.
dave49
1 year ago
David Bond pointed out the folly years ago
The former chief economist for the Hong Kong Bank of Canada, David Bond pointed out the folly of the first round of Campbell tax cuts years ago. It cost him his job.
Surprise, surprise, surprise, he was correct. Subsequent tax cuts have not had the claimed effect. But the 'smoke and mirrors' machine continues to put a positive spin on a failure.