Brian Topp stakes out his ground

Stephen Harper and his cronies must be happy today. With Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff, the Conservative war room had to argue against a carbon tax and quote mine extensively to find a suggestion that a tax hike wasn’t off the table.

Now, NDP leadership candidate Brian Topp comes right out with out:

Brian Topp is boldly going where most Canadian politicians fear to tread: promising to make the wealthy pay more in taxes.

The perceived frontrunner in the NDP leadership race wants his party to make higher income taxes for high-income earners a key plank in its next election campaign platform.

He told The Canadian Press he intends to unveil a detailed proposal in the weeks to come.

"I will be talking about income taxes and I think it’s time for our party to step up to that plate and to be pretty clear about that because then we’ll have a mandate to act if we’re elected," Topp said in a wide-ranging interview.

He also called for a hike in corporate taxes and did not rule out a sales tax increase "at some point," once the fragile economy is on surer footing.

I like it though.

With the Occupy protests and growing awareness to the increasing inequality worldwide, calling for a fair tax system is long overdue.

Where Ignatieff went wrong was when he caved to the Conservative attacks. They attacked him for taxes, he fell beck. They attacked on coalitions and cooperation, he fell back.

I see Topp standing up to the attack ads and saying, “Yes, I will raise taxes for the wealthy so that this country can be great.” It will paint a stark picture of the different visions that the NDP and Conservatives have for the country.

One with cradle-to-grave health care and peacekeeping; the other with austerity and peacemaking.

My personal preference is for the underdogs, but so far, Topp is painting a pretty promising picture.

It’s not all flowers though. Topp does go out and suggests that NDP MPs should toe the line and oppose the gun registry

"The fact of the matter is, the money has been spent, the registry is here, police services are using it, the public overwhelmingly supports it, there’s no compelling case for dismantling it that isn’t emotional," he said.

"There is precedent in our party for letting people sit out a vote. But I could not support arrangements in which members of our caucus vote with the government on this bill."

He may be right, but the evidence of its efficacy is limited at best.

He’s likely going to alienate a few voters in the prairies, which will threaten his chance at expanding where most of the new seats are going. Blowing off the prairie voters like this could have long-term consequences.