Yesterday, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff stated that taxes would have to rise to reduce Canada's burgeoning deficit, but not at the expense of hurting any economic recovery. In other words, no tax hikes while the recession is on, but once the economy is sort of back on track, we have to pay down those deficits somehow. Of course the Conservatives jumped all over that comment, to the point of highlighting it on the party's website.

Personally, i think Ignatieff's right. The reality is that the federal government's revenues were seriously impacted by the GST cuts even before the economy started to tank, and there isn't a single economist anywhere who thinks the GST cuts were a good idea, never mind good policy. The only way to bring down these huge deficits we're racking up at the moment is either through massive spending cuts, or else by increasing government revenue  (or combinations of both). I don't think either individual Canadians or the provinces will want to see massive spending cuts (or in the case of the provinces, see Ottawa offload spending for programs onto them instead), so finding ways to increase government revenue seems like the most logical path back to fiscal health - and raising taxes seems like the logical place to start.

Thoughts?