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Tom Monto

Pro-Rep and Alberta Sales Tax

Updated: Mar 21, 2021

Those who think a minority government may be pushed to bring in a sales tax in Alberta - and applaud such a development - have probably not considered the full ramifications.


Much as I want to see the Alberta government address its problems in new ways and I believe PR would help it do that, I would not be in favour of PR if it actually meant that 10 to 20 percent of the people who want a provincial sales tax would be in the driver's seat. While PR is sometimes known as minority representation, that is not the way to sell it - we want majority rule, not minority rule. And in so many ways, pro-rep would give us majority rule, not minority rule. (Our present system - First Past the Post - gives us minority rule. This is true both at the district level - in about a third or more of the districts - and in all but six federal elections since Confederation, FPTP gave power to a party that received less than half the votes country-wide.) Minority rule can so easily backfire. Among the retrograde steps it may produce would be the imposition of sales tax, by the way. (More on that below) I read somewhere that a minority government (including the ones produced by PR) although wanting to postpone its downfall, will not be forced to do something that is totally against its ideals. For if so, why be in power? (Of course there are no hard and fast rules in politics.) From what I understand about BC politics, the NDP government in BC (unfortunately) was not ready to pursue PR. And the Greens was big on it. But the NDP could not be pushed enough to bring in PR. It did though hold a referendum. And that is how minority governments operate generally - they can be pushed to make small moves (or appear to make moves) to placate a junior partner but not to do something they really don't want to do. That is the nature of political compromise. The same, I think, would hold true for sales tax. If a major party is lukewarm about it, it could be pushed by a junior party. But a party holding minority government status that is against it (because it wants to be re-elected!) would not be pushed to just bring it in. And junior parties have to watch - their political futures often suffer from propping up a minority government . Bob Rae's NDP suffered from making secret deal with the Liberal government. Anything the government did that was unpopular, it blamed on the NDP. Minority governments often - not always but often - turn into majority governments - sometimes at the cost of their junior partner. Now of course COVID has put everyone - except mask manufactures and vaccine makers - into debt, but it has hit Alberta the hardest because of its historical "spend it while you got it/ pretend the boom will continue forever" "build hospitals lay off nurses" strategy. But it was noted a few years ago that Alberta would not be running a deficit if it had the personal income tax structure of its neighbour, Saskatchewan, which itself was imposing one of the lightest tax "burdens " on taxpayers in Canada. if Alberta has fiscal difficulties, it is due to the fact it does not have a very progressive income tax. - it taxes the middle people at a rate not much less than the super wealthy. A sale tax imposes high administrative costs for shopkeepers and hits the consumers. The government is trying to get the economy going again and then talks of putting a tax on consumption. Strange. Sales tax is imposed more on working families than the wealthy. Why? Because working families spend their money about as fast as they get it -- wealthy save more. It's just a fact. I know Alberta not having a sale tax bugs others, but that they have sales tax and we don't is the difference they made, not what we did. The province could work without a sales tax if it had -- proper sales tax or more lucrative royalty taxes, or more inheritance taxes or more government businesses that make money - the government hid how much money it made off its government liquor stores but it was a sizable chunk. Utilities and other large corporations are natural monopolies and profit machines - why not have government ownership there? There are many better ways to raise Alberta government income than sale tax. Minority rule - whether through minority governments or unfair voting systems - is to be avoided, not encouraged.


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Thanks for reading.


Check out my blog "List of Montopedia blogs concerning electoral reform" to find other blogs on this important subject. --------------------------------------------------------------- This year is the: * 100th Anniversary of United Farmers of Alberta party being elected on promise to bring in electoral reform, a promise fulfilled three years later.

* 50th anniversary of the last STV city election in Canada. Calgary elected 14 city councillors through STV, and then switched to FPTP for city elections. By that time, more than 54 years after the first STV city election, anyone old enough to have voted using X voting in a city election would have had to be 75 years old.

* 50th Anniversary of election of Lougheed's Progressive-Conservatives. With only 46 percent of the vote they took more than 60 percent of the seats. NDP received 11 percent of the vote but elected just one (Grant Notley), instead of the nine MLAs it was due.

==================================================== What is STV?

From a 1902 reform magazine: "Thinking it well to have in every number something by way of a brief explanation of proportional voting, I repeat in this number the following. Proportional representation means the use of a reasonable and scientific system of voting instead of the present stupid, unfair and inefficient procedure. Methods: There are several systems by which the principle of proportional representation may be given effect to. Large electoral districts, each electing several members, are a necessary feature. The "quota" plan is usually employed. It means that a quota of the votes elects one representative. To arrive at the quota, the number of valid votes cast is divided by the number of seats to be filled. For instance in a seven-member district any one-seventh of the voters could elect one representative and the other six-sevenths could not interfere with their choice. The three principal systems of proportional representation are the Free List as used in Switzerland and Belgium [party-list pro-rep], the Hare system as used in Tasmania [STV], and the Gove System as advocated in Massachusetts. The Preferential Vote [Alternative Voting/Instant Run-off Voting] -- This is used in the election of single officers such as a mayor. It is not strictly a form of pro-rep but is akin thereto, and uses part of the same voting methods. The object of preferential voting is to encourage the free nomination of candidates and to obtain always a clear majority at one balloting, no matter how many candidates are nominated." (From the Proportional Representation Review Dec. 1902, p. 77) (Hathi Trust online resource, page 81/180) Thanks for reading. ========================================================

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