Public Pressure Pays Off

In August, Prime Minister Stephen Harper did not attend the World Aids Conference in Toronto, nor was his government represented in any way. Organizations were loudly critical of his lack of interest. Yesterday, on World AIDS Day, the Harper government finally acknowledged the planet’s AIDS crisis. International Co-operation Minister Josee Verner announced that Canada will give $120 million to the global fight against AIDS. They chose a few directions to funnel the money. Twenty million dollars will go to vaccine research, and $19 million to Haiti and Canadian agencies for prevention programs. Tanzania will receive $20 million for it’s HIV/AIDS plan, while McGill University will receive $2.5 million for research into preventing parent-child transmission in Zimbabwe.

Yesterday’s announcement is great news, but there is still more to be done. The generic AIDS medication promised to Africa years ago has still not left the country, for one thing. A hundred and twenty million dollars is good, but it is only a drop in the bucket.

Harper seemed distinctly unsympathetic to AIDS victims less than four months ago, but now he has changed his tune somewhat. I am sure that public outcry over his silence in August is a big factor in yesterday’s AIDS funding. The Conservatives are, well, extremely conservative, but they must respond to the majority of the people, or they will lose their power. This is especially true with a minority government like this one. Whatever your political concerns, it is always worthwhile to express them. We must continue to voice our opinions until the government is forced to act.

Trust Funds

It seems that the Tory government has finally done something I agree with. Lately big companies have been switching from being corporations to being trusts. This has some meaning for investments that I don’t understand, but it also meant that the companies didn’t have to pay taxes. Tim Horton’s, Bell Canada, and Tellus are examples of big corporations that became trusts so that they didn’t have to pay taxes. I learned about this trend earlier this summer, and had found it disheartening. Now that big companies were becoming trusts, the situation was getting even worse. The government was losing billions from these trusts. Canada need tax dollars. We complain all the time about the sorry state of health care, military, foreign aid and other programs. We cannot expect these programs to improve if we allow big business to have huge tax breaks. Long ago, individuals paid about 50% of Canada’s income revenue, while corporations paid the other 50%. Over the years corporations have paid a smaller and smaller percentage of the income revenue. Recently they have been paying about 25% of tax revenue, leaving individuals to pay 75%. The trust fund trend was bringing the percentage of business tax revenue even lower. It’s great news that this loop hole has been plugged. I am stunned that the Harper government has done something that I would have done if I was in office.

Unfortunately, the new rules were announced on Halloween, which was a Tuesday. Investors didn’t have a chance to process the information that night and they lost money the next day. There seems to be a great amount of anger in the country about that. Harper had also declared before being elected that he would not make such changes. It’s common for politicians to gain new understanding of issues once they assume leadership of the country. I’m more concerned about the decisions that politicians make in power than how consistent they are with their election promises. We should understand that it’s likely that sometimes leaders will need to change their minds when they see the details from the point of view of the seat of power. It’s a shame that so many people lost money on the changes. If the changes were announced on a Friday, the losses could have been prevented. One caller on “Cross Country Checkup” pointed out that they could have halted the stock exchange for a few days while the public learned of the changes. Most people who have investments are those who are pretty well off. The millions of people who use food banks do not have investment portfolios. They are the sort of people who suffer the most from loss of government tax revenue. I feel badly for those who suffered financial losses this week, but I hope that they can take comfort in knowing that this decision was the best thing for Canada in the long run.