Time to Nationalize The Globe and Mail?

In response to a pretty moderate Ontario NDP platform, today’s lead Globe and Mail editorial goes off the rails on a crazy train: “disastrous,” “protectionism run amok,” “a fantasy,” “a radical platform that would move Ontario toward a command economy” and “dangerous provincialism.”

It breathlessly reports that “Ms. Horwath did not rule out nationalization of the auto insurance industry” and goes on to contend “This is not the moderate NDP of the Manitoba or Nova Scotia governments.”

Someone needs to inform the Globe editorial board that a Manitoba NDP government did nationalize (or provincialize?) auto insurance and it is working rather well (ditto Saskatchewan and BC).

As I noted last year, the Canadian city with the most insurance-industry employment per capita is the capital of the first province to establish a publicly-owned insurance company.

UPDATE (October 5): I have the following letter in today’s Globe:

Corporate tax rates

Your editorial, Closed for Business (Oct. 4), claims that “corporate tax rate increases are correlated with less investment.” For more than a decade, the correlation has actually been decreasing corporate taxes and less business investment.

The combined federal-Ontario corporate tax rate was slashed from 45 per cent in 1999 to 30 per cent in 2010. Over the same period, investment in machinery and equipment fell from 8.3 to 5.5 per cent of the province’s gross domestic product.

Six months ago, The Globe reported a similar nationwide correlation on its front page under the headline Corporate Tax Cuts Don’t Spur Growth. The NDP is right to advocate reversing failed corporate tax breaks.

Erin Weir, economist, United Steelworkers, Toronto