[Pastiche]

More fodder:

Dialling it back a notch, Harper's comment was telling on another level. Even if one assumes he was overstating things, that he was just trying to make the point that he'd prefer to see all taxes lower than they are, his words might help explain one of the decisions for which he's been most heavily criticized - the untimely cuts to the GST.
Nobody can seriously argue that all taxes are equally bad (or good). Some are better than others at drawing large amounts of revenue with comparatively minimal economic or personal impact. By the estimation of most economists, the GST is a good tax. But if you start from the premise that any tax cut is a good tax cut, then the main consideration becomes bang for your buck in terms of public opinion - and the GST is among the showiest of taxes to cut.
Nobody likes paying taxes; in and of themselves, they're unpleasant things. For the average taxpayer, it's pretty harmless to grouse about them without considering them in relation to each other or to the services they help provide. For the prime minister, it's a little more troubling.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs...rticle1216560/


And a rebuttal by Spector:

Saying that there's no such thing as a good tax is not the same as saying that all taxes should be eliminated. And it's quite a leap to suggest that Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who expressed the former but not the latter, must be an anarchist or that he holds anarchist views.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs...rticle1217532/