Coyne strikes a nerve

There can no longer be any doubt, after his latest derogatory tirade, regarding Andrew Coyne’s position towards small family businesses.

Here is a quick review of his commentary on small family businesses:

Abused the current tax regime for small business; sprinkling income on family members; using their corporation to play the stock market; Canada suffers from too many small businesses; small business is unproductive; the tax system is tilted in their direction; a drag anchor on the nation; glut of ‘mom and pop’ operations; eligible for all sorts of tax perks; tiny uncompetitive firms

Wow. If that’s not a denigrating, insulting and offensive dialogue, I don’t know what is.

It would be interesting to know if Mr. Coyne’s barber or corner family laundromat knows that he feels so strongly as to offend them publicly How about the guy that owns the pub on the corner where Mr. Coyne enjoys a cold beer while harbouring such disdain? Or maybe it’s a hot coffee from the family corner cafe; does he makes reference to that sort of anti-small business rhetoric?

Mr. Coyne concludes by stating that it is time to get rid of the small business deduction. Yet, his article would lead one to conclude that he really prefers to get of small business. After all, he clearly thinks these tax-evading losers are such a drag on the economy. Andrew Coyne seems to intuitively assume that it would be beneficial to Canada if small businesses were to become large enterprises, without compelling evidence to back the claim.

Currently, small businesses provide millions of goods and services to millions of consumers and employ millions of Canadians, including those in the smallest communities that make up a large proportion of Canada.

Large businesses will often not service smaller markets, and with scale often replace employees with technology. Furthermore, when provincial governments legitimately provided for incorporation of professionals, spurring growth was clearly not the intent.

Nevertheless, Mr. Coyne concludes that Canada needs an undefined “pro-growth policy” with elimination of the small business deduction. What is wrong with this Coyne fellow? His column was the worst nonsense printed yet. Small business is too small and needs to be hurt because it is small and chooses to remain small. What an urban ill-informed point of view. Very Liberal actually.

Aren’t we lucky the National Post continues to print Coyne without a countervailing opinion beside his, or at least the cigarette warning that consumption of his opinion could be bad for your health.

Apparently it’s not Hugh Segal, whose last known act was to delete his title of ‘Master’ before going to ground to avoid the press. Well, he need not need to spend much time designing a new official banner for his office: he can just hang out a white bedsheet to symbolize his abject surrender to the PC mob. It is sad to witness such intolerance and hate displayed by a few immature students at Massey College. While one does feel great sadness for Professor Marrus, it is even more appalling to see the appeasement policies of the university’s Board of Governors. What they have done will set the course for future outrages.

When will this all end, or will it? Will ours become a society where all are afraid to speak because any casual remark could be misinterpreted, and offend someone? Thank goodness for a Canadian mayor finally standing up to NHL president Gary Bettman and his ongoing corporate welfare requests.

Our health care system already subsidizes a long line of NHL-produced concussions, brain injuries and dementia.

Our tax dollars have to be better spent than on inflated real estate schemes that most Canadians will never come to enjoy, let alone understand. And if an election is needed to send a message to the NHL in New York, please let me know where to send my campaign donation.