Dear Editor:
Re: Businesses pay majority of taxes, Burnaby NOW, Oct. 24.
In reporting on the recent studies by the Fraser Institute and the Canadian Federation of Small Business on municipal taxation and spending, Jacob Zinn doesn't question (by seeking an opposing view, for example) the conclusions of either organization. Rather, he has simply accepted the basic premise of the two corporate-funded organizations, - that business is being unfairly taxed - and pretty well adhered to the scripts-cum-news releases written by the two organizations.
For example, Zinn leads off with the observation that "the Fraser Institute found that 52 per cent of Burnaby's property tax revenue comes from business - the highest of all municipalities in the study."
Sounds bad, doesn't it? Yet, from all accounts, businesses in Burnaby are doing just fine. There is no mass exodus occurring, much less a shuttering of store windows. So, why follow the lead of the Fraser without question and write it as bad news?
Why not write it as good news? With just a few minor changes to those words the story not only could have been different, but upbeat as well: "the Fraser Institute found that 48 per cent of Burnaby's property tax revenue comes from homeowners - the lowest of all municipalities in the study".
Zinn, however, seems to adhere to the journalistic imperative that bad news is good news. And
in pursuit of this principle, the latter part of his article is pretty well turned over to unchallenged self-interest quotes of the CFIB about the business tax rate, and the throwing in of a highly prejudicial remark that "businesses are getting shafted." Again, he makes no effort to present a contrary, much less a challenging, viewpoint.
As such, Zinn does himself as well as NOW readers a great disservice.
Bill Brassington, Burnaby
