Re: “Albertans can’t afford a sales tax,” Franco Terrazzano, Opinion, May 7.
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation provided a lengthy opinion piece describing the reasons for not considering a sales tax in Alberta.
I believe a rebuttal is warranted. Before getting into this, I wish to point out that the Canadian Taxpayers Federation does not, in any way, represent a proper sample population of Canadian Taxpayers.
They are a small non-profit think-tank for far right politics, and I would suspect they regularly provide advice to the UCP and the Conservative Party of Canada.
Do not consider their opinion as representing the majority of people in Alberta or Canada, let alone represent the majority of people who vote conservative in Canada. It is a cleverly misleading name for their organization.
A sales tax is a consumption tax; those with money who spend their money would pay the tax.
Those with limited income would first of all consume less, and therefore, pay less tax, and it would be reasonable to have exemptions and tax rebates or refunds to alleviate the burden.
It costs tax dollars to run a country, so that we have “peace, order and good government” (British North American Act, 1867), and foolishly starving our public institutions will lead to the chaos we see south of the border.
This is not to say I do not support vigorously auditing and cutting inefficiencies in our government.
Government departments need to be held accountable for their costs and value they provide. I am a “progressive” conservative voter; always will be, but I do not support the ideas of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation to summarily dismiss a provincial sales tax as Premier Jason Kenney and the UCP are doing.
John Dickin, Red Deer