Sometimes I agree with the Conservatives (sort of)

CBC online has a story today about a proposal from the Agricultural Institute of Canada that the GST be assessed on food, and the money given to farmers as a subsidy. This is stupid. The article quotes MP David Anderson (C-Sask), "do we need to increase taxes further? If this government was serious about supporting agriculture, it seems to have a fairly healthy surplus." I agree with him in part. Though I am not opposed to income taxes, I generally frown on sales taxes, especially when they are applied to essential items like food. Adding a 7% tax to food would only hurt the poor people of Canada, and there are much better ways of subsidising the farm industry, if that is what we want to do. To my surprise, Anderson, in pointing to the government's surplus, seems to be suggesting my favourite, just give them money directly from government coffers. It need not be tied to any particular source of (government) income. We could then, for example, divert money received from taxing the wealthiest Canadians to paying farmers to produce food at a cost above market price. This of course raises the other pertinent question, should we subsidise them at all? I don't know. One might view the food supply as in part an issue of national security. We might not want to become too dependent on other countries for our food. Even if we disagree with that, we might think that, at the very least, the current generation of farmers needs some sort of safety net.

Anyways, back to work.