Andrea Horwath scores the greatest approval ratings of any politician in Ontario. So far so beneficial to the NDP leader.
But what good is recognition if you can’t do much good? Happily for Horwath, it’s already been a great summer for her party and cool Montblanc watches policies.
Her bombshell byelection victory this month clogged the Liberals' bet for a big part — and helped her to retain the balance of power. Without it, Horwath would have been powerless to pursue her party's agenda.
Another little bit of great news: An unprecedented public talk by Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney late last month lambasting corporate Canada for sitting on a $560- thousand stash of cash.
“This is dead money,” the governor lectured the business enterprise world.
Canada's influential fundamental bank was not intentionally cozying around Horwath together with his remarks. But the NDP considers Carney’s musings match with certainly one of its major policy planks: Corporations can not be trusted to create jobs with the cash lavished upon them through tax cuts — they need qualified selecting rewards to obtain the task done.
“What is extremely evident is that the usage of (reduced) corporate taxes for stimulus does not work,” Horwath said. Now, she wants the minority Liberal government to get intent on her demands.
“I am very hopeful though, considering what Mr. Carney has said, which our strategy can have more cachet.”
For Horwath, the political and economic stars might be in place. She is keen to utilize her new-found political capital to place pressure on large business.
What started as a small little bit of the NDP's 2011 campaign system became a centerpiece of the entente cobbled together by Horwath and Premier Dalton McGuinty throughout their high-stakes budget series last spring: In trade for keeping the budget (and Liberal government) living, Horwath extracted a promise from the premier to avoid a scheduled corporate tax rate reduction.
2nd, she gained McGuinty's pledge to appear critically at a job-creation tax credit that will compensate companies for improving their payrolls. Her $250 million program was argued by horwath, modelled on a similar U.S. Strategy, would offer less expensive for citizens' income that is now doled out to businesses with no strings attached.
The delicate task of evaluating the NDP's need now drops Replica Hamilton Watches to an unlikely band of blue chip business numbers (and a few small progressives) sitting on the premier’s new Jobs and Prosperity Council announced in the budget. Chaired by Royal Bank CEO Gordon Nixon, it must now navigate via an sudden political and economic minefield.
As a lender, Nixon represents the corporate welfare and tax loss that the NDP condemns: Canada's banks benefited handsomely from a series of Liberal corporate tax cuts, seeing record profits without making the type of high-value jobs that merit taxpayer subsidies.
But Nixon promises to listen to Horwath out. One of is own first orders of business will be to deliver a request to Horwath.
“We will undoubtedly be obtaining the views of the NDP party,” Nixon said. “I am no expert on the NDP proposal, but to the extent that we now have rewards... Which can be better focused when it comes Glashutte Unique Watches to job-creation, then I would not argue... and it's precisely the kind of thing that we ought to be seeking at.”
But Nixon remains unconvinced that corporations are hoarding cash that goes in public areas coffers: “There is no proof whatsoever that there is any relationship between tax charges and cash balances at corporations,” he argues.
Can he map out an easy method ahead on this and other prosperity strategies?
There is putting up with skepticism about these clubby advisory councils. Pat Lavelle, a deputy minister who oversaw the premier’s authority set up by David Peterson in the late 1980s, says a lot of its work finished up on a shelf.
Whether Nixon’s group may have much say, and get its way, depends greatly on the political lay of the land: Horwath’s NDP is on a — emboldened by Carney’s hectoring and stimulated by its own byelection success. The Liberals are on the defensive — and dependent on NDP help to keep power.
As McGuinty’s success panellists will quickly discover, it’s hard to split up economics from politics.
Martin Regg Cohn’s provincial matters order looks Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. mcohn@thestar.ca, twitter.com/reggcohn.