Freedom Party of Ontario

- MEDIA RELEASE -

For immediate release



Ontario's Health Care Premium

JOHN TORY'S HEALTH TAX EXEMPTION
PROPOSAL COSTS ALL ONTARIANS

PC leader's call to exempt armed forces from health premium helps
propagate the fraud that the premium is for health care.


April 6, 2006, Whitby-AjaxFr
eedom Party leader Paul McKeever is today condemning opposition leader John Tory’s call to exempt members of the Canadian armed forces from the requirement to pay Ontario’s “health premium”.  Tory made the proposal during question period in the Ontario Legislature yesterday.

"Mr. Tory’s argument is that Ontarians whose health is paid for the by the federal government should not have to pay the McGuinty health care premium”, says McKeever.  “I don’t hear him arguing that other Ontarians should get a federal tax cut because, unlike soldiers, they don’t get health care from the federal government.  However, more to the point, Mr. Tory’s proposal harms efforts to achieve real tax relief because the proposal is based on a fraudulent assumption: that the health care premium was introduced to put more money into health care, rather than just to increase revenues overall.

“The fact that the tax in question is referred to as a ‘health care premium’ does not change the fact that the premium does nothing more than add more cash to the kitty.  In fact, Mr. Hampton reported to the Legislature two years ago that some of the revenue was being spent upon sewers.  More to the point: even if the revenues from the tax were 100% ear-marked for health care, the net effect would still be that the government has more money to spend on everything.  At best, all that ear-marking can accomplish is the diversion of other tax revenues: from health care to other areas of spending.

“The fact of the matter is that to give a new tax a name like 'health care premium' is merely a way for politicians to sell a tax increase to the voter by making the voter think that, this time, the additional tax will go to an appropriate use.  It’s a strategy that implies, correctly, that other taxes are being spent on things they should not be spent upon. 

“When Mr. Tory proposes that members of the armed forces should not have to pay the health care premium because their health care is paid for by the federal government, he helps the Liberal government propagate the fraudulent assumption that the health care premium was introduced to put more money into health care, rather than just to increase revenues overall.  That sort of PC-Liberal collaboration can only lead to more allegedly-earmarked taxes and to a greater overall tax burden for all Ontarians.

“Let’s call Mr. Tory’s proposal what it is: blatant vote-buying.  We saw enough of that nonsense when Mr. Eves tried to buy the votes of seniors with promises of education tax relief, and buy the votes of mortgagors with mortgage interest deductibility.  Common to all of these proposals is that the Progressive Conservatives propose to give taxpayers in their target voter demographic a gold mine by giving other taxpayers the shaft.  They are morally, economically, and politically corrupt proposals from teeth to tail.  Such shell games deserve nothing but the scorn of anybody who wants actual tax relief.

“Enough with politically-motivated tax exemptions, deductions and credits.  It’s time to reduce governmental responsibilities so as to reduce expenditures and facilitate the reduction of tax rates.  The issue is not whether soldiers should pay the health care premium.  The issue is that there never should have been a health care premium in the first place, and it needs to go.  The sooner we act, the sooner we stop bleeding jobs into other jurisdictions.”


For further details, contact:

Paul McKeever, Leader, Freedom Party of Ontario
e-mail:
e-mail

Office: 905-721-9772


This media release distributed to all major news media and to Ontario's MPPs.


Freedom Party of Ontario
240 Commissioners Road West
London, Ontario
CANADA N6J 1Y1

Tel: 1-800-830-3301
web: https://freedomparty.on.ca