“Should a country be run as a corporation?”

 

There are many proponents to that theory just as do those who oppose a country owning Crown Corporations. The ugly truth is both a country should be run as a non-profit charity and a Crown Corporation should be run as a business; the Crown Corporation should not be used as a patronage welfare posting for supporters. 

If Canada were run as a non-profit charity Stephen Harper would have been fired by the board of directors long ago. No charity would tolerate its leader cutting its revenues (donations/taxes) for the express benefit of another corporation and, to the detriment of operating programs of the charity, as Stephen Harper has done to Canada. 

Unfortunately apathy on the part of Canada’s Board of Directors, the voter, has allowed the Harper deconstruction of Canada’s operating programs through the reduction of revenues and the elimination of wide variety of essential programs that protected the people and the environment. The elimination of these programs has put the health and welfare of the public at risk. 

Imagine the head of a charity (Harper) going to the board and telling them that he wanted to reduce the selling price in their re-use shops by 2% which would lose the charity billions each year and, by the way, I am going to allow corporate donors to reduce their donations by 14% but give them a receipt for the full amount so that they can increase their profitability.

That my friends is a simplified explanation of what Harper has done to Canada and its fiscal ability to provide the people with the programs such as medicare, CPP, EI, education, welfare etc; but worse than that, as the price of oil drops so do revenues because Harper has made Canada a sole source economy by dwelling on oil and neglecting the recovery of manufacturing. 

Canada is now in a very vulnerable financial position should oil remain low.

 

While lower oil prices can be a boost to a lagging manufacturing industry most corporations will have a wait and see attitude before increasing production back to its pre 2008 level. My fear is that should we not see industry taxes increase we will see more dramatic cuts to our essential programs.