Conrad Black: How to fix our broken tax system

Photo by Gurkaran Singh

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From time to time over seven years I have inflicted upon readers some of my public policy ideas, including a partial privatization of the welfare system. The method envisioned is using the tax system to impose a very small and refundable wealth tax to enlist the wealthiest and most financially sophisticated people to assist in job training and creation. It would have to be carefully designed and the taxpayers would have to understand it as part of a comprehensive program of cost and tax reduction and that the additional tax was refundable. Instead of being an assault upon the means that they have amassed by their own work and ingenuity or even inheritance, it would be borrowing from them by the state in the public interest to enlist the sagacity of the taxpayer to supplement the efforts of the welfare system in increasing employment and assisting the disadvantaged. It would be designed to encourage the replacement of outright payments to the unemployed with opportunities for them to sustain themselves through gainful employment.

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This suggestion was accompanied with a large number of other proposed public policy initiatives and all of these thoughts were published in a thin volume of mine about ten years ago called The Canadian Manifesto. The book had quite a brisk sale. My refundable welfare and wealth tax generated a number of inquiries, but it has obviously had no discernible effect on the federal and provincial governments and legislators. For many years I have believed that the key to conferring upon Canada the influence and respect it can attain is to become a trend-setting laboratory in creative public policy and particularly to use the tax system to incentivize our most successful capitalists to be participants in the attainment of legitimate social goals such as the reduction of poverty and increased job creation and a steadily more talented workforce.

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This ties in well with my long-standing call for a much larger defense budget, which has now been embraced by NATO, including Canada. There is a good deal of latitude in what constitutes defense spending, including the construction of highways that can be more or less plausibly claimed to assist in national defence. But in general, the acquisition costs are in the most sophisticated cutting-edge areas of technology, where the investment would enable us to join with international corporations in building up our own defense industries and advancing our scientific and technology base. And the increased personnel costs go in part toward what is in all of the western countries the most successful form of adult education. Almost everyone who enlists for an extended time in the armed forces emerges with much strengthened formal academic and professional qualifications.

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Over the approximately 15 years that I have been periodically emitting these ideas, I’ve encountered a number of wealthy lions of commerce who had original public policy thoughts. One was Stephen Jarislowsky, with whom I celebrated our grand reconciliation in this space several weeks ago. Stephen wrote a gracious note published in this newspaper slightly disagreeing with my proclamation of our political unity of mind, defending youthful agitation about climate change. (I remain convinced Stephen knows what unutterable rubbish most of the alarm about climate change is.)

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Another extremely wealthy and successful and durable titan of industry who is an old friend is the 93-year-old Frank Stronach, who invited me to lunch a couple of weeks ago at his organic restaurant in Aurora. He appeared to be completely unruffled by his legal travails which were not mentioned, and we lengthily discussed his long-standing and faithfully implemented ideas of corporate governance. These are based on his fervent belief that the ancient squabble between public shareholders, controlling management shareholders, and the workforce must be replaced by a regime of cooperation in which all share in the tangible success of the business.