Dear Monsieur Dion,
You might remember me from other letters, such as "A letter to the leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition," the first in this series.
In my first letter, I gave some outsider advice that I thought might be able to help you. It appeared, at the time, that you needed all the help you could get.
In this letter, I'm going to give you advice, but it is advice I'd like to see all parties pick up.
It might seem strange that I'm giving you this advice since it's about the GST, and in the first letter I told you to stop talking about the GST. You were musing, at the time, about considering reversing Prime Minister Stephen Harper's cuts to the GST. Under no circumstance should you do that, unless you hate moving so much that you'd rather stay in Stornoway for the rest of your political career.
But here's a positive thing you can do with the GST.
Simply put, you should offer in your next platform to give school boards a 100 per cent GST rebate.
The school boards across Canada, which currently get a 68 per cent rebate on the GST, are begging for the same treatment the Liberals gave municipalities in 2004.
You should give them what they want. It is a good idea for two reasons.
First, it makes a lot of people happy while not costing much money. It'll cost a measly $200 million per year. When you make school board trustees happy, a lot of people hear about it. Having spent a lot of time in the past two years at school board meetings, I have learned that trustees spend a lot of time talking and appear to love talking more than anything else. They will, then, tell a lot of people about the plan over the course of an election campaign, and word of mouth is good advertising.
Also, if you unroll it properly (and aren't upstaged by more interesting and superficial happenings), you will also get newspaper coverage in nearly every market as community newspaper reporters figure out what the promise will mean for their local school boards. In Mississauga, it will save the public board nearly $7 million, and the Catholic board slightly less.
Second, you can use the move to prove how much smarter you are than the Conservatives.
The Conservatives cut the GST by two points, which was a bad idea, according to every living economist on Earth. It helped nearly no one, and hurt the government's pocket book. With this promise, you'll be cutting the GST and you'll be helping a specific group, and a group - students - that no one hates.
For added value, you can also take the time to remind everyone that it was a Liberal government that gave municipalities a 100 per cent GST rebate back in 2004. Then voters will start thinking, 'wow, these Liberals are smart and urban, and care about our children.'
There really aren't many ways the federal government can help students in elementary and secondary schools since it's not your jurisdiction, but this will allow you to get in on that without angering your provincial counterparts.
In other words, this a no-lose proposition. The only people who could possibly be angry are the people who run the hospitals and universities, which don't get a 100 per cent rebate either. If you're feeling really generous, you can offer the same deal to them.
Sincerely,
Craig MacBride
Reporter, blogger, and self-appointed know-it-all
The Mississauga News