When it comes to the PST increase, Manitobans clearly are not buying what Premier Greg Selinger is trying to sell.
A new poll conducted by Probe Research and published this week in the Winnipeg Free Press said that 65% of Manitobans don’t believe that the PST increase was necessary to maintain key public services or to build provincial infrastructure. The majority of Manitobans believe that the NDP don’t have a revenue problem, they have a spending problem and that if the provincial coffers were being managed properly, the PST tax increase wouldn’t have been needed.
The poll also indicated that while only 25% of Manitobans believe the PST increase is necessary, even many of those who identified themselves as supporters of the NDP didn’t believe the increase was needed.
The poll is really just data that confirms what most Manitobans already know. From the beginning Mr. Selinger had a very difficult time explaining to Manitobans why the increase was needed and where the money would be going. Even today, months after the announcement of the PST hike, the NDP still haven’t explained what the money will be used for other than we know it won’t all be used for fixing roads.
Of course, if the NDP could have justified the tax increase they wouldn’t have changed the law that required a referendum prior to an increase in the PST. They would have felt confident holding the referendum and making their case to Manitobans about why the increase was necessary. They didn’t want to hold a referendum because they couldn’t make the case. So they just changed the law and took the money.
Manitobans have seen this story before. It was only last year that the NDP increased fuel taxes and expanded the PST to items like home insurance. They did all of this telling us that it was necessary to reduce the deficit. Yet, we found out just last week that despite the massive tax increase last year, the deficit for the past year was more than half a billion dollars. The deficit wasn’t reduced at all and in fact it came in higher than budgeted. Where did all the new tax money from last year go?
Throughout the debate on the PST the NDP have had a hard time even convincing their friends this was a good idea. Some union leaders came out to committee to say that the thousands of workers they represent were in favour of the PST increase. The poll shows that clearly wasn’t the case and they must have failed to poll their own members.
What is clear is that Manitobans understand what is going on. They get it that Mr. Selinger has a spending problem and that they are picking up the tab for it. And we hardly needed a poll to understand that.
