Right Wing Tasties

The right wing refers to supporters of the PC’s and Reform. They

military. What Martin

did to placate these people was end what is known as “bracket creep.” What this is is when people make more money (thanks to inflation increasing income), they move up a tax bracket (which increases the percent- age amount they pay in tax in our progres- sive taxation system). It has served as a rev- enue boon for the gov- ernment (it will cost the government $1 bil- lion to return to index- ation). By ending it and indexing tax rates to inflation, Martin is doing two things. One is serious tax relief (es- pecially for lower in- come people who are most hurt by the creep which has pulled in 1.9 million people into higher tax brackets over the last 10 years without them seeing any real increase in their income). The sec- ond is that Martin si- lenced his critics and pulled the rug out from under the right. In terms of debt repay- ‘ment, Martin contin- ues to pay down the $570 billion monster in increments of $3 bil- lion (which he calls contingency funds for emergencies but doesn’t use when they

‘

arise... see health care, farmers, coal miners and fisheries). Interest on the debt alone is the

PIGS

by $2 billion over 3 years for improved pay (translation: get military spouses off the food bank line) and

new equipment.

Spending for the left depending on ones perspective. Several initiatives were an- nounced amounting to about $5.8 billion (with overall government spending going from $116 billion to $121.8 billion). Included in this was another $2.5 bil- lion for the block trans- fér Ottawa gives the provinces to manage health and education (far short of the Pre- miers’ demands). This drop in the bucket does not amount to much espe- cially when it is spread over several years. While health is clearly the nations priority, Ottawa seems content to let the provinces take this criticism on the chin. This could begin to create an unCanadian disparity between rich prov- inces with good care and poorer ones with weaker systems. The government also be-

gan spending money

spending on defence

($700 million) on the environment again as they must gear up to meet pollution levels

Re

species. The ia ticket |

items were children getting $850 million more per year which comes in the form of the Canada Child Tax Benefit. The second item was to increase maternity/parental leave to one year from 6 months at a cost of $900 million, which will come from Em- ployment Insurance. Another big initiative was increasing the ba- sic tax free exemption to $8000 over 5 years (this year it will go from $7131 to $7231 and is beneficial to students as well as low income earners). The middle

continued on page 14

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aH iit page 13

arise. For this econ the committee is composed of:

arent etree

h Ps questions or complaints that may