It may not be as valuable as an Eric Lindros rookie card or as much in demand as a Gordie Howe card from the year he retired, but Ralph Goodale’s 1998 MP trading card is now available.
Like cards for the other 300 MPs who sit in the House of Commons, Goodale’s offers some vital statistics.
The Canadian Wheat Board minister was elected in 1974, 1993 and 1997 and represents the 70,320 constituents of Regina Wascana.
Then comes some information not found on any hockey trading card. The residents of Wascana consume 607,565 kilograms of sweet confectioneries each year.
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Like all MPs, Goodale’s smiling face competes for attention on the front of the card with the admonition: Have a Sweet Day.
On the back comes the political pitch: “Did you know consumers don’t pay GST on imported cookies and donuts but do pay GST on confectionery products made by Canadian workers?”
The MP trading cards are a clever and expensive lobby effort by the Confectionery Manufacturers Association of Canada to remind politicians about a broken election promise to the food industry.
In 1993, the campaigning Liberals promised to revise the goods and services tax to create a system that “is fairer to consumers.” The industry says that has not happened and business has suffered.
It says sales are flat and employment has dropped by almost 1,000 during the past five years because of unfair competition from tax-free competitors.
The problem for the confectionery manufacturers and their more than 6,000 employees is that complicated GST rules mean the tax applies only to some goods.
For example, GST is charged on chocolate bars but not on cookies sold in sufficient quantities.
“Maintaining this double standard, in terms of how the GST is applied to competing food products, is unfair and is costing Canadian jobs,” CMAC president Carol Hochu said in a statement launching this year’s Parliament Hill lobby.
“We are not asking for special treatment. We simply want to be taxed on the same basis as our competitors.”
The Liberal government, instead of replacing the GST as promised, studied the issue during its first term and decided it could go no farther than tinkering. It offered to amalgamate the federal sales tax with the provincial sales tax in any province willing to do so.
Most of them declined.
The confectionery manufacturers say the rules discriminate because while all their products are subject to the GST, cookies, donuts and cereal bars are exempt when purchased in quantities of six or more.
One of the messages on the MP trading cards sums up the complaint: “You pay GST on the mini-chocolate bar in your child’s lunch but not on caviar and cookies.”
