To hear the Conservatives tell it, some things that exist actually don’t, and others that don’t actually do. Confused? I’ll explain.

During question period Thursday, New Democrat Murray Rankin rose on a question unrelated to the ongoing scandal surrounding Mike Duffy and the $90,000 payment from Nigel Wright, and harkened back to earlier times, when we were all still talking about the budget.

He told the House the Conservative government is one that denounced an iPod tax, but that “has now introduced its own through the backdoor.” That backdoor is in the shape of the Economic Action Plan 2013, a.k.a. the federal budget, wherein the government decided to raise tariffs, including those on MP3 players.

“In a bizarre twist, we learned just today that the Conservatives have long planned on making this tax retroactive, demanding that retailers pay back-taxes on all the iPods they have sold, and even on some TVs, in the past,” he told the Commons. “Obviously, retailers are simply stunned. Why did the Conservatives not even give industry a warning that these changes were coming?”

Ted Menzies, the minister of state for finance, stood to respond on the other side of the chamber. But rather than offer an explanation, he decided to instead lend an evaluation of Rankin’s query.

“Mr. Speaker, there is no fact in that question. It is all false,” Menzies said. “The only people in the House of Commons who actually want to put a tax on iPods are the New Democrats. They are the only ones who want to increase taxes.”

Over at Canadian Business Thursday, Mike Moffat, an economist at the University of Western Ontario, and the man responsible for uncovering and bringing to light the tariff changes in the budget, noted that a number of importers have written to the government in protest. The group, known as the 9948 Fair Treatment Coalition (named for the tariff number) includes a number of MP3, TV, and computer speaker manufacturers and distributors. He wrote:

The Coalition alleges that “the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has misled dozens of Canadian companies for years by inducing them to import MP3 players and other goods into Canada duty-free, all the while planning to later collect millions of dollars in back-duties on the goods, with interest in penalties.” The release goes on to quote members of the 9948 group, including, Ken Buschlen, VP of Finance for Panasonic Canada Inc. who explains that “[the] CBSA issued us authorization to import products duty-free, but now it appears that CBSA intended to claw back the duties later. That is plainly unfair.”

The Coalition came to this conclusion after it obtained CBSA emails via Access to Information. Moffatt admitted he couldn’t speak for the veracity of the Coalition’s case. However, he said, “This ‘iPod tax’ issue has garnered a lot of attention as a political story. We should not lose sight, however, of the unnecessary burden placed on Canadian businesses.”

It leaves one wondering what parts, specifically, of Rankin’s question were false. Menzies said all of it was. But the tariff on MP3 players does exist, and it was the Conservatives that effectively imposed it. Are the Coalition’s claims false? If so, how? And why not correct the record, if that’s the case?

Rankin’s caucus colleague, Mathieu Ravignat, was up next to allege that because the government is saying one thing and doing another, it has to spent money to convince people of its logic. “This is why they’ve spent $190,000 per minute on ads for a jobs program that doesn’t exist,” he said. He wondered whether the iPod tax was in place to help the Treasury Board president pay for those.

Ravignat was talking about the jobs grant, a program the government is indeed already advertising, but that doesn’t yet exist. The ad, however, doesn’t mention that. Instead, it tells Canadians that with the new grant, the feds will partner with the provinces and territories to get people the skills they need for a new job. “The Canada job grant will result in one important thing,” the announcer says, “a new or better job.”

Pending approval.

Lisa Raitt, the labour minister, fielded – in fact was “delighted to answer” – Ravignat’s question, because “we think it is such a great program,” she said.

“We believe it is important to communicate it to all Canadians so that they can see themselves, or see their own potential, in those commercials,” she continued, more or less explaining only the very basic theory behind advertising as a concept, but offering little by way of an explanation as to why these ads are being run already for a program that doesn’t yet exist.

“I think it is very important that in those ads, we see young women wearing hard hats, an under-represented group in the trades, and we are promoting that and we will continue to,” Raitt finished.

So there you have it: What does exist does not. And what doesn’t exist, does – for purposes of perceived gender equality.