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WINNING WITH SOUND POLICIES NOT SOUND BITES
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"REJECTING MODERATION MAKES REFORM PARTY STAND OUT - The abiding disability of the Reform Party--that it fails to present a credible alternative to the Chrétien government--was cured last week. With its new platform, it offers not only a different vision of the federal government, but one that is radically different--with less taxes, less spending and far less government--so radical it would render a Reform-governed Ottawa unrecognizable."
Ted Byfield, Financial Post
October 26-28, 1996
"YES, BUDGETS CAN BE BALANCED AND TAXES CUT AT THE SAME TIME - ...The lesson of the American experience is not that tax cuts don't work. The lesson is that tax cuts unmatched by strict control of spending don't work. That's why the Reform economic plan, which envisages big reductions in federal spending, is vastly better than anything we've yet heard from the Charest Conservatives, who have ruled most important areas of spending off limits... Our country made a fateful error in the 1970s. We turned from being a low-tax enterprise economy into a high-tax dependency economy. The economic misery of the 1990s represents the long-delayed cost of that fatal choice. The prime minister seems to imagine that, once the deficit is behind us, we can return to the bad habits of the 1970s. But that will only ensure that the misery of the 1990s becomes the permanent economic condition of Canada. There has to be a better way: and the Reform party has found it."
David Frum, Financial Post
October 26, 1996
"REFORMERS NEW POLITICAL PLATFORM A SOLID DOCUMENT - An old rule of politics is that the vehemence with which a policy is attacked is directly proportional to the likelihood of the attacker's stealing it. The vehemence of the old-line parties' attack on the Reform party's 'Fresh Start' campaign suggests they will borrow from it liberally--and conservatively, too, although probably not new-democratically."
William Watson, Financial Post
October 23, 1996
"RICH IN GENEROUS IDEAS FOR WAR ON POVERTY - Astonishing, Reform's Fresh Start election platform has seriously raised the stakes on social policy reform. Promised sharp cuts in employer payroll taxes (by reducing employment insurance premiums for employers) will lower firms' cost of hiring. That will boost needed job creation. And the way the tax cuts have been fashioned, Reform could put lots more dollars into the pockets of poor parents. Simply raising the income tax personal and spousal exemptions by $1,444 and $2,520 respectively will remove an estimated one million low income families from the tax rolls - people who never should have been paying taxes in the first place but were sucked into the system as their incomes rose above frozen personal and spousal basic exemptions."
Giles Gherson, Southam Papers
October 23, 1996
"A REFORM PLATFORM WORTH PONDERING - On the political side, the Reform platform is good for the democratic process, and a smart partisan move as well. On the process, for the first time since the revitalized CCF/NDP of 1962 merged into the mainstream, we now have a real choice in our federal vote. New Democrats have become mere 'Liberals in a hurry,' and the Charest Red Tories look like Liberals with more caution and curly hair."
Gordon Gibson, Globe & Mail
October 22, 1996
"CUT TAXES TO GIVE ECONOMY A BOOST - What the economy really needs is a tax cut, not another rate cut... The pervasive weakness of the domestic economy isn't so much about the 1.3 million Canadians who don't have jobs, but rather the 13.7 million who do [and] have no purchasing power. Instead of pretending that a new round of interest rate cuts will miraculously deliver the punch that already much larger rate cuts have failed to deliver, let's stop waiting for Godot and seize the new fiscal opportunity to cut taxes and put some spending power back into the economy."
Jeffrey Rubin, Chief Economist
CIBC Wood Gundy Securities
"A BOLD STROKE - THE REFORM PARTY HAS LOOKED BACK TO ITS ROOTS AND FOUND ITS FUTURE - The Reform party has moved decisively to regain its focus and recapture the soul of its support in the 'Fresh Start' election plan unveiled Thursday... The days of policy floundering for Reform appear to have come to an end: there is no mistaking what Reform and where it - and Manning - will take the country if given a mandate to govern. That is a very good thing."
Calgary Herald
October 18, 1996
"REFRESHED REFORM - ...On the whole the new platform appears smoothly updated to appeal to an electorate ready for a change from the relentless gloom-and-doom of the early '90s."
Vancouver Sun
October 19, 1996
"The first thing to say about the Reform Party platform is that it is welcome. It is provocative, wide-ranging and, in many places, specific. Our democracy needs brave alternatives to the status quo, ideas that dare not speak their name and proposals that include the process by which we manage public affairs. Reform's platform, released yesterday, offers all these things."
Globe and Mail Editorial
October 18, 1996
"Fresh Start is a smart start - The smartest idea Reform has had in ages was sending Preston Manning on the road this week to launch the party's ‘Fresh Start’ election platform... So, was the tour a success for Reform? On balance, yes. It was well managed, the party clearly has a decent organization in place in the region, and despite Reform's low standing in the polls, every major media outlet in the country tagged along for the show... The Grits can no longer keep on coasting forever with vague promises of good times to come. Manning has met their challenge to lay his specific proposals on the table."
Sean Durkan, Sun Papers
October 21, 1996
"Pollsters will affirm that much of this is popular stuff - at least in piecemeal form, if not as a whole - and ought to strike a responsive chord with mainstream voters...funding increases in place of previous calls for health-care, education and pension cuts puts the party exactly where the public is at."
Giles Gherson, Southam Papers
October 18, 1996
"The Reform tax cut proposals are a stark contrast to Liberal complacency."
Terence Corcoran, Globe & Mail
October 18, 1996
"Far ahead in the polls though they may be, the Liberals have been put in the position of responding to Reform's detailed and aggressive proposals with vague, watered down versions of their own. The parallels with Ontario's recent election cannot be lost on anyone."
Andrew Coyne, Vancouver Sun, Montreal Gazette
October 19, 1996
"I think the platform is an excellent document. I think it is something that will have the support of the membership and accurately summarizes the thinking of members."
Tom Flanagan, Politics, CBC Newsworld
October 17, 1996
"Reform's promise to drastically shrink Ottawa and cut taxes got a thumbs up from Alberta experts yesterday. And the party's get-tough plan for crime was even praised by Alberta Justice Minister Brian Evans. ‘For the first time in living memory we have a major political party talking about seriously cutting government spending and providing real tax relief for Canadians,’ said Jason Kenney of the Alberta-based Canadian Taxpayers' Federation. Dr. Mark Genuis, head of the Calgary-based National Foundation for Family Research and Education, applauded Reform's tax cut promise for families. ‘The platform places families at the top of the nation's priorities,’ he said of Reform's promise to give one-income families a child tax credit and boost personal exemptions and spousal allowances. University of Calgary economist Robert Mansell called Reform's plan to cut spending by $15 billion and balance the budget by March 1999 ‘a refreshing bit of honesty in terms of what Canadians can afford to spend for their federal government.’"
Steve Chase, Calgary Sun
October 18, 1996
"LOWER TAXES ENCOURAGE WORK EFFORT, INNOVATION AND SAVING. EVIDENCE SAYS TAX CUTS ARE NECESSARY. - ...would tax cuts help stimulate the Canadian economy? The answer is a resounding Yes... According to a World Bank study, economies with lower taxes experience more rapid economic growth, invest more, and experience more productivity gains. Recent studies estimate that a 10% increase in tax burden reduces a country's annual growth rate by 2%. Thus there appears to be a negative association between growth and high marginal tax rates. The economics behind these conclusions is straightforwards. Lower taxes encourage work effort, innovation, and higher savings rates. Since these activities are instrumental in the growth process, economies that encourage them are likely to grow faster and create more jobs... The evidence from the U.S. and other parts of the world suggests that tax cuts are a necessary condition for economic growth. The federal government would be well-advised to consider the positive impact tax cuts would have on the Canadian economy, or risk facing a tax-battered electorate ready to fire its own volley at the Liberals, under the cover of the ballot box."
Fazil Mihlar, Policy Analyst
Fraser Institute
