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The current tax-reform package is very selective about the evidence it deems relevant. There is no evidence that the current tax system harms economic growth, or that there has been excessive savings in the business sector, which actually turned negative over the past two years. How will taxing savings in small businesses impact investment and growth, or impact Canada’s low rate of startups and small-business creation? No evidence is provided to answer these questions.

The whole artifice of evidence-based policy-making is open to question. Facts and policy are completely separate entities. Evidence is almost always nuanced or outright ambiguous and never comes with a definitive policy recommendation. Judgement is always involved, starting with whether government action justifies the inevitable loss of personal freedom, what specific actions best attain the desired result, and how fast government wants to move society to this preferred outcome.

Claims these reforms are based on evidence are contradicted by the avalanche of dogma deployed to justify them

Claims the proposed reforms are an exercise in evidence-based policy-making are contradicted by the avalanche of dogma and class-warfare rhetoric deployed to justify them. Proponents like Michael Wolfson have concluded that the lesson to be learned from the opposition to tax reform was the power of special-interest groups (who apparently control the new NDP government in B.C., which recently voiced its concerns). This childish finger-pointing ignores the federal government’s disingenuous communication strategy and the mendacity of its claim that business owners pay less tax than employees. Most importantly, it does not account for the impotence of the business lobby as governments across the nation proliferate regulations, impose carbon taxes, increase EI premiums, hike CPP contributions, boost minimum wages, raise corporate income taxes and erect more regulatory hurdles to investment.