Ontari-scary-o

Okay, here's the Brian Hughes graphic that was on the front page of The Star today, attached to this story by Robert Benzie. The boldface is mine.

Read it carefully because there's a trick question coming:

Premier Dalton McGuinty's move toward harmonizing the 8 per cent provincial sales tax with the 5 per cent GST is meeting with sharp resistance within his Liberal caucus, the Star has learned.

Behind closed doors in Tuesday's caucus meeting, skittish MPPs aired grievances over the scheme – which would raise consumption taxes on books, feminine hygiene products, heating fuel, children's clothing, diapers and fast-food value meals by 8 per cent while reducing the overall tax burden for business.

The premier has been receptive to arguments from business people who say they are at a disadvantage because they pay more in taxes to purchase equipment or machinery than competitors in Quebec or the Atlantic provinces, where the two taxes have already been harmonized.

But Ontario consumers would feel the impact immediately because many products that are now taxed federally but not provincially would be subject to the equivalent of both taxes under a harmonized system.

Do the Ontario Liberals hate women? Do they hate the working poor? Because what's up with making cheap shoes more expensive? What kids' clothes? Diapers?

And let's not get started on tampons which women, who make less than men, are already heavily taxed on. Some $60 million a year pads the federal coffers by women who are cursed with the GST every month on menstrual products.

And yeah, I know that was five questions.

And the trick is being played on us by these bozos.

Hey, didn't the NDP elect a woman as leader this past weekend?

Comments

[the regina mom]

Of course Liberals hate women, Antonia! Haven't you been watching politics? Haven't you been blogging it?

[johnnykap]

"women, who make less than men..." Thus spake the Zerb.

Zerby, if it were really true that women make 78 cents on the dollar compared to men, wouldn't companies hire nothing but women to lower their costs? After all, they're evil corporations who would do anything for a buck, right?

The false pretenses you feminists must operate under...

[christine nectarine]

johnnykap: check the stats http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/labor01a-eng.htm

women are more likely to be the ones offered minimum wage, temp or part time hours etc which screws us out of that full dollar. we also (still) find ourselves responsible for the majority of childcare and household responsibilities, so may find if more difficult to work the high-paying, high-level jobs. even if we do so by choice, why should we be forced to pay tax on such a neccessary items as tampons? when you get your menses, you'll understand.

[Paul]

Tampons– okay. Are condom taxes raised, after all?

But child care products, though? Please help me understand the sexism there.

Wouldn't children who live in households with both parents have such purchases drawn from a common household income? I mean, that’s how it works in my house. If your general thesis holds true that men hog brunt of financial responsibility (again, as it is in my house)– then if we must sex our income -- wouldn’t the tax on child care products be more unfair to men, or at least proportionally equal?

I would think you must be referring to separated families, where women, but aren’t you then just chumming the water for those kooky “Mens Rights Types”? After all, if women bear an unfair financial burden because they get disproportionate custodial preference, the solution there is simple. And that doesn’t take into account the fact that custody of the child doesn’t necessarily relate to who is *paying* for them, financially – which they seem to be saying is so often the men anyway.

Or, did I misconstrue your meaning? You did also refer to working poor in the same sentence, but I don't know how that necessarily relates to kids clothing and diapers.

[Kat]

@Paul: there are two ways to look at costs -- in terms of total dollars or in terms of percentage of income.

It costs the same in total dollars for a rich person to buy a pair of cheap shoes as a poor person, but the percentage of income is greater for a poor person. So if the total dollars required to buy something essential (which shoes are in Canada), the poor are going to feel it more.

You also assume that single parent families are only created through divorce. They are not. They are also created through the death of a parent, and sometimes they are made that way to begin with -- the father refuses to be a father *and* refuses to pay for the children's needs. When I was teaching in a school that had a lot of working poor in it, I heard a lot about dads who left when their child was about two, when it finally hit them that parenthood isn't always just about having fun. Yes there are a lot of government programs to chase after delinquent and absent parents, but they don't always find them, and if they do they don't always make them pay.

[Paul]

Kat, my point is simple. If one makes a general statement that the tax on kid's clothes affects women more than men, then there should be an obvious reason why this is so.

Your first rebuttal states that it affects *the poor* more than the rich, not women more than men. As such, the experience of poor male parents will be identical to the experience of poor female parents. This isn't sexism.

And I'm not really sure what to say about the sad stories of absent parents. What does that have to do with the tax on children's clothing affecting men vs women. As I indicated, there seems to be a lot of guys trying to get involved with their kids lives and being told they can't, except financially -- in which case the tax still affects them. It's a silly argument, yes, designed to illuminate the original silly argument.