Tax Attacks

"In kitchen terms," said Toronto M.P.

Donald Fleming, "this budget is as dull as dishwater, and it fell as flat as a pancake." Parliament, in general, shared Tory Fleming's disappointment with the stand-pat budget brought down by Finance Minister Walter Harris (TIME, April 2).

Only one item caused the M.P.s to raise their voices: the 20% tax that Harris wants to impose on the Canadian advertising revenues of foreign, i.e., U.S., publications. Opposition members echoed the widespread complaints of Canadian newspapers that the tax would be an indirect threat to press freedom. One telling point was scored by Carl Nickle, a Calgary Tory, who is publisher of the Daily Oil Bulletin and other trade journals of Canada's prosperous oil industry. Nickle explained that he stood to benefit personally from restrictions on foreign periodicals ("Potentially, there would be lessened competition for my publications"). But he was still opposed to "having my competitors handicapped by ... an iniquitous and dishonest tax, discriminatory in its application and wrong and dangerous in its principle."

Another speaker with a professional interest was Margaret Aitken, who doubles as a columnist for the Toronto Telegram. Tory Aitken pointed out that some of the U.S. magazines are not matched by any comparable publication in Canada and that the government, by whittling them down, would be imposing "a form of censorship." Protested Margaret Aitken: "I resent government interference with my reading matter."

Other speakers disagreed with Finance Minister Harris' contention that Canadian magazines need government protection, citing their steadily growing advertising revenues and circulation. Ontario M.P.

Michael Starr pointed out that two Canadian publications, Weekend and Star Weekly, have achieved circulations of nearly 1,000,000 in recent years. "This is not a depressed Canadian industry," said Starr. "On the contrary, it is a thriving, prosperous example of Canadian enterprise at its competitive best."

If they had any answer to the opposition's arguments, no Liberals stirred to present them. Instead of debating details, Liberal speakers rose one after the other to deliver blanket endorsements of the budget. "This is a good budget," said Liberal Irvin Studer, in a speech that was typical of the Liberal line in the debate. "This government has proved in the past, in the present, and will in the future, that there is no end to good government."

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