in the canexit analogy, alberta and saksatchewan are actually emerging as a kind of scotland, that is resisting the exit and wants to stay in the cusma. and, in the process, they are implementing more academic and less populist policies, that will lead to less self-harm, although they are bound by the foolishness of the federal government's new hidden consumption tax policy on capital inputs and capital investment.

if we're going to do this with seriousness, we should also abolish the gst.

...because the gst was created to replace a similar historical tax that existed before the fta, and was taken out as a part of the trade negotiations.

as it is, the net sum is that we've doubled consumption taxes, because we have both the gst and the thing the gst replaced in place, simultaneously. that's like a 70% consumption tax on some items. nothing could be more regressive than that. that's going to make us far less competitive, globally.

i would consequently support a policy shift by the opposition parties to completely get rid of the gst, so long as these tariffs look like they're long term. it's not a good policy, but it's a lesser evil.