Liberal

The best Valentine you’ll ever give

With the Toronto-Danforth by-election set for March 19 — the first true federal political battle since the election — it’s time to rally behind the local Liberal team.

Tonight, local members are meeting to choose the Liberal candidate for Toronto-Danforth.

We can make sure the candidate they elect and the dedicated team of volunteers behind him have all the money and resources they need to run a campaign that goes toe-to-toe with the NDP and Conservatives.

That’s why I’m asking all Liberals to help us raise the approximately $135,000 the riding and national office can spend during the by-election campaign, before midnight, Monday, February 13.

Please donate $5 to the Take Toronto-Danforth Campaign right now – and send the kind of Valentine that can make a difference.

In fact, our team of volunteers has even cleared a wall at campaign headquarters where they’ll put up a Valentine heart with the name and home town of every donor who supports them. When they’re tired, it’s your name they’ll be looking up at for a boost.

Here’s what it all boils down to. Less time spent fundraising means more time spent building a winning campaign, including:

• Micro-targeting through our state-of-the-art database Liberalist to produce niche advertising flyers and doorknockers;
• Buying billboards, and full page and other ads in local mainstream, multicultural and electronic media;
• Renting tablet computers and smart phones to enter data on the doorstep instead of back at headquarters;
• Holding telephone town halls that introduce our candidate to tens of thousands of voters in a single evening; and
• Expanding our volunteer phone bank operation to identify thousands more friendly voters each night.

We’ve already taken one riding away from the New Democrats in Quebec. Think about the message it will send to win another, Toronto-Danforth.

At the same time, we’ve got strong competition on both sides. Consider how critical it is that we halt the Conservative advance into the Greater Toronto Area. There is no doubt in my mind that this by-election is a critical milestone in the Liberal comeback.

Please donate $5 to the Take Toronto-Danforth Campaign before midnight, Monday, February 13 – and put your name on the Valentine Wall at campaign headquarters.

You can also call 1-800-701-7789 (9am – 5pm, ET, Mon-Fri) to donate by phone.

Thank you.

Bob Rae

Liberals Call for Fairness and Transparency in Redrawing Electoral Boundaries

With the release of yesterday’s census data on population, the Electoral Boundaries Redistribution Act gives the Speaker of the House of Commons 60 days to establish and appoint individuals to the 10 provincial Electoral Boundary Commissions.

Mr. Dion and Mr. Garneau penned a letter to the Speaker of the House formally requesting that he inform the House of Commons and all Canadians how his office will ensure openness and transparency in the establishment of the Electoral Boundary Commissions.

Dear Mr. Speaker:

As you are aware, the Electoral Boundaries Redistribution Act requires that the number of seats in the House of Commons and the boundaries of federal electoral districts be reviewed and potentially readjusted after each decennial census, according to changes in the population. Given today’s release of the short-form census data on population, the 60-day period in which you, in your role as Speaker, must establish and appoint individuals to the ten provincial Electoral Boundary Commissions has commenced.

We have full confidence in your sense of fairness and impartiality, however even with a strong Office of the Speaker of the House of Commons this process could be compromised by partisan meddling if it is not carried out in a fully open and transparent manner. The reality is that while this is a non-partisan process, there will likely be great pressures by the Conservative Party to fix the process in a way that favours them. Whether it be the dirty tricks employed by the Conservative Party to smear the name of MP Irwin Cotler to his constituents in his riding of Mount Royal, or the “In and Out Scandal” for which Conservative Party operatives, including Conservative Senators Doug Finley and Irving Gerstein, were charged with breaking the Canada Elections Act for deliberately exceeding spending limits in the 2006 election campaign, the Conservative Party has demonstrated there is little it will not do in pursuit of electoral gain.

While there is no doubt that you will strive to fulfil this tremendous responsibility in a most even-handed manner, establishing Electoral Boundary Commissions behind closed doors allows for ambiguity as to the fairness of the process and creates the conditions under which the redistribution process can be manipulated. Gerrymandering, or even the appearance of gerrymandering, creates a dysfunctional atmosphere of polarization and partisanship which threatens the very health of a democracy. We know you will agree that this is not the path we want to take and that we must do everything in our power to ensure such abuses do not occur.

Canadians expect this process to be fair, transparent and in accordance with the Rule of Law; and that any redistribution of electoral boundaries be done so in a natural, logical manner in line with already established administrative divisions.

To that end, we respectfully request that you inform the House of Commons and Canadians-at-large how your office will ensure openness and transparency in the establishment of the Electoral Boundary Commissions. Given that they must be established by April 8, 2012, at the latest, we would appreciate your prompt reply.

Thank you for your consideration of this matter.

Yours sincerely,

Marc Garneau, M.P.                                                                       The Hon. Stéphane Dion, P.C., M.P.

Liberal Party House Leader                                                          Liberal Party critic for Democratic Reform

Bob Rae talks skills and trades with the ACCC

Bob Rae addresses the Association of Canadian Community Colleges – Feb. 7, 2012.

Read Bob Rae’s blog post and comments on his national Skill and Trades Tour last month.

Share your views: Fixing the administrative problems with Scientific Research and Experimental Development

Ted Hsu

It is widely expected that the coming federal budget will include major changes for the Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) tax credit.  In the wake of the Jenkins Panel report on innovation and the soon to be released Taxpayers’ Ombudsman report on illegitimate SR&ED claims, many companies involved in research and development have become concerned about its future.

Most people would agree that there are too many illegitimate SR&ED claims.  Too often the decision to make a claim is done after the fact, often at the suggestion of a claims processor, trolling for possible claims and working on a contingency fee. In instances like this, even if the tax credit is ploughed back into the business, it does not work as an incentive to invest in innovation and commercialization.

While it is true that many of the Jenkins Panel’s 228 industry submissions criticized the administration of the SR&ED program, very few of those submissions recommended fixing the problem by limiting claims to labour costs as the Jenkins panel itself concluded.

That’s because many companies which legitimately benefit from SR&ED tax credits are in capital intensive businesses with large upfront investments in equipment.  Limiting SR&ED to labour costs would dramatically increase the costs of research for them, which is why the Liberal Party cannot support it.

This raises the question:  How do we make SR&ED more efficient and reduce the number of illegitimate claims without significantly narrowing the scope for eligibility?

The following are two recommendations based on suggestions I have heard from people who have used the SR&ED program.

The first is to require companies to notify the Canada Revenue Agency within three months of the start of a project that will eventually lead to a SR&ED application.  This statement of intention and brief description of expectations would limit the amount of retrospective SR&ED trolling by consultants.

The CRA would immediately acknowledge receipt of the notification, not as a pre-approval but as an agreed start date for which a future SR&ED claim could be made.  Companies could quickly file amended statements should their research lead them in an entirely different direction.

Second, the time it takes to process SR&ED claims must be reduced.  Currently a firm has up to 18 months to apply and the CRA may take up to a year to audit their claim.  Amid growing, research-intensive companies tend to move around and knowledge of a research endeavour, as well as documentation, can be lost.  Sorting all this out leads to extra costs for the company and extra man-hours, which means tax dollars, for CRA employees.  Allowing a maximum of six months to file a claim would help reduce this problem.

These two suggestions would improve the efficiency of SR&ED without limiting the scope of the program, while saving money by reducing illegitimate claims.

What do you think? Share your views in the comments below.

- Ted Hsu

Liberal critic for science and technology

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Members’ Telephone Townhall

Replay the webcast of the Feb 1 Members' Telephone Townhall.

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Bonne Fête, Louis St-Laurent

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Watch Bob Rae’s social policy speech

Liberal Leader Bob Rae is giving an important speech on social policy in Canada today at 2:30pm EST - and you're invited to watch live.

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