MONTREAL – The NDP has suspended a member from its shadow cabinet because of his chronic, long-term failure to pay taxes.
Tyrone Benskin has been stripped of his role as official-languages critic until he pays the taxes he owes.
The announcement follows a report that Quebec’s revenue agency has contacted the House of Commons to seize part of his salary because of more than $58,000 he owes the province for unpaid taxes between 2007 and 2011.
Benskin authored a private member’s bill which was put to a vote in 2012. Here is a summary of the bill from Benskin’s website,
The culture industry is one of the biggest sectors of the Canadian economy. But due to their often irregular hours and inconsistent incomes, artists are nearly always disadvantaged both by punitively high taxation during years of high earning and by being ineligible for a number of federal programs such as Employment Insurance (EI), the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and others.
Tyrone Benskin’s Bill C-427 will begin to level the playing field by allowing Canadian artists to average their income over a period, achieving considerable tax savings over two to five years. This would follow the example of Quebec and of a number of foreign countries.
This is a deeply personal project for Mr. Benskin, who has been an artist for over 30 years. C-427 is born of an intimate understanding of the numerous and pressing challenges faced by contemporary Canadian artists.
Is it not a conflict of interest for a Member of Parliament to be legislating on an issue that affects him directly? We’re all taxpayers of course, but doesn’t this legislation affect his particular case directly?
Mr. Benskin lost his shadow cabinet position today in the NDP caucus. Should we have sitting MPs that legislate specifically to their own interest? Should Benskin be facing the Ethics Commissioner instead? This appears to be a grossly unethical conflict of interest.
Denis Coderre announced today that he’s running for mayor of Montreal. We wish him the best of luck.
However, Coderre told reporters that he’ll be stepping down as a federal Member of Parliament on June 2nd. That’s a bit of a peculiar date as it is neither today, nor election day, nor when the mayor-elect — whoever it will be — will be sworn in as mayor of Montreal.
So, why June 2nd?
Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Mr. Coderre was first elected on June 2nd 1997, marking 16 years in office.
And qualifying for another MP pension eligibility threshold on that very same date.
OTTAWA — The Conservative party was unable to get television commercials aimed at Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation because the attack ads violated the network’s long-standing ban on political advertising.
The Tories approached CBC officials before the launch of the “Michael Ignatieff: just visiting” campaign and were told that an internal policy prevented the network from accepting political ads outside of times of elections.
As are other broadcasters, CBC is required to provide a share of its airtime to political parties during the writ period, but can set its own rules outside it.
“We’ll only accept political advertising like that when there is an election campaign on,” CBC spokesman Jeff Keay said. “We have generally pretty strict guidelines.”
The policy has been in place for many years and was reviewed a few years ago, Keay said.
And now tonight, on The National, the CBC gets an exclusive and gives a teaser of the new Liberal ad,
UPDATE: CBC notes that it did discuss the Conservative Party’s Trudeau ads in a larger story regarding the ups and downs of Trudeau’s first day as Liberal leader. And the ads were critiqued on the At Issue panel. A bit different than an entire (albeit short) segment dedicated to a featured teaser to be sure, but this update helps define the broader context regarding stories about political advertising/stories about advertising on CBC.
UPDATE: HuffPo publishes a lengthy piece about how I was ‘wrong’ about the CBC and its policies regarding political advertising and cite a policy change in October 2009 as proof of my terrible wrong-headedness.
I really can only go from the information that is provided publicly. One would think their published policy on political advertising would be the first and last source on this matter. Here it is. I note that it has been unchanged since May 5th, 2005 and doesn’t exist on some archived museum of public broadcasting page at CBC. We can only interpret this policy as the current one. I’ll copy it in full here:
Policy 1.3.10: Political Advertising
Effective: May 5, 2005
Responsibility: Vice-President and Chief Regulatory Officer
Policy
The CBC/Radio-Canada considers it a part of its mandate as a public broadcaster to support the democratic process during general elections. The objectives of this policy are: i) to allow qualified political parties participating in a general election to present their views directly to the voters whose support they are seeking; ii) to ensure the equitable allocation of commercial time among qualified parties; iii) to satisfy the requirements of applicable laws and regulations; iv) to ensure consistent management of political advertising.
The CBC/Radio-Canada accepts political advertising messages on its main television services during federal, provincial and territorial general election periods. On its other television services and on radio, the CBC/Radio-Canada accepts political advertising only as required by the Canada Elections Act and in accordance with the allocation made by the federal Broadcasting Arbitrator.
In federal elections, qualified political parties are those that have been registered by the Chief Electoral Officer and new parties that have had their application for registration accepted by the Chief Electoral Officer. In provincial and territorial elections, qualified political parties are those that are duly registered with the provincial or territorial Chief Electoral Officer and participate in the election by fielding candidates.
The CBC/Radio-Canada does not accept political advertising from groups other than qualified political parties or from individuals. The CBC/Radio-Canada does not accept program sponsorship, closed-captioning sponsorship, or product placement of a partisan political character.
Political advertising is sold in such a way as to ensure equitable allocation of time among qualified parties in accordance with CRTC regulations. It is scheduled in such a way as to ensure the integrity of programs and their environment. The CBC/Radio-Canada will not broadcast election advertisements that may imply, or give the appearance of, an endorsement on the part of the CBC/Radio-Canada or raise doubts as to its neutrality.
(my emphasis in bold)
Note that CBC has not updated its current official policy on political advertising since May 5, 2005 despite what some hasty revisionist PR-agents at MotherCorp would like to tell you otherwise.
Yet CBC PR suggests that their advertising policy allows for partisan advertising outside of a writ period. Curious, no?
