Tax Cuts or Infrastructure?

The Conservatives are going to force an election over corporate tax cuts. This confirms for me yet again the short-sightedness of their vision. Tax cuts are provisional - given today they can be taken away by the next government. They do nothing but increase profits but do not create a stronger long-term outlook for business or anyone else. This is not a sustainable advantage to business and so won't increase business investment in real, skilled-labour jobs like manufacturing but will focus instead on resources (because they are there) and services. We miss all the secondary- and tertiary-value-added opportunities that our resources should afford us because we're not a reliable long-term manufacturing investment if our competitive advantage is "tax breaks". This is especially true in the deficit-laden future that is looming with rising healthcare and energy costs.

If we need a more attractive investment climate, fine. But let's do it right. Let's do what businesses can't do, and give them an advantage they can count on.

A conscientious investment in infrastructure against the known-rising costs of petroleum is something that businesses can plan around for a major investment in plants and jobs. We already have an attractive skilled-labour business climate in that we have a well-educated population and socialized medicine; businesses do appreciate that. If you can show them a system of transportation and power generation that they can rely on into the future--if you can show them how you will be less reliant upon ever-more expensive oil--you've created a sustainable advantage for businesses.

We need some serious government investment in infrastructure projects, not corporate tax cuts. My call would be:

1. public transit in the top-ten largest cities in the country - Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver at the minimum must have the best public transportation on the planet
2. Windsor to Quebec corridor highspeed passenger rail - it's ridiculous this hasn't already completed
3. a great, nation-spanning non-petroleum rail-freight system - get freight off combustion engines, rubber tires and asphalt - most of it is going to the same places anyway
4. a non-petroleum transportation system will put massive pressure on the electrical grid so significant clean energy investment will be needed