RSSPolls Not Encouraging for Canada's Harper, Conservatives
By Paul Baiocchi | November 13, 2007 | 1:48 AM | 1 Comment
The Conservatives in Canada must have felt a twinge in their collective necks yesterday as polls revealed the party's $60 billion dollar tax cuts written into last month's budget proposal did little to help distance them from the liberal party once again. This development further validates the notion that the Conservative party has suffered irreparable damages over the course of the past 18 months, in an environment in which so many supporting factors should have been allowing them to further entrench the party in parliament . This does not make either of these developments surprising given the recent history of impotency exhibited by the Canadian government, but they are nonetheless telling.
Forgive me for sounding redundant, but when Harper was elected and the Liberals were scrambling to restore credibility nearly two years ago, the world was his venerable oyster. Resource prices were on the rise, Canadian GDP was growing, the Loony was rising, and unemployment was declining. Meanwhile the country's surplus was gaining momentum based on record tax revenues. Global confidence in Canada's capital markets was also growing, evidenced by the nearly 50% foreign ownership rates of resource Trust assets. By way of the party's candidacy platform, the country represented a stable tax investment destination. Momentum was moving toward a national exchange and national market regulation.
As a result of the tax legislation and budgeting employed by the conservatives, Canadian trust assets have moved farther back in the quest to stabilize financing structure, not forwards. Instead of using cash flows realized from rising commodity prices to eliminated costly debt obligations, trusts have been handcuffed by their need to stow cash reserves to meet future and current tax liabilities. Where once the country was efficiently and productively taxing trust assets, it is now constantly manipulating an increasingly complex tax structure. Until now the financial implications of the conservative party's have been slow to simmer, but the public opinion has roared to a boil.
It is hard to fathom how one party could do more to ruin so many positive factors over the course of less than two years. Complaining about a $60 Billion tax cut may seem nitpicky, but not within the context of this party's recent history. And a decline in the polls was not what Harper was looking for after announcing the proposed tax cuts. In fact, the conservatives are at 32%, in a virtual tie with the Liberals. Clearly, the credibility of the Conservative party has reached a new low as the political and economic failings of the party over the past two years have manifested themselves as falling public opinion ratings.
Two years ago, if you would have told me the Conservative party would receive a 32% support rating and that would tie them with the liberals, I would have said that would be a DISASTER. Now, it seems as if the Conservatives will be lucky to still be there at the end of the year.
For Canadian trust investors, amazingly enough, it might be best if they fell even further and were replaced altogether.
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