Selling strong medicine: The rhetoric of Ontario's Harmonized Sales Tax

Abstract

Taxes have appeared in many forms in different societies, and yet, while society abhors paying them, society wants the benefits they bring. The challenge for governments is to sell the benefits of taxation to society through effective economic and political rhetoric. Through an examination of specific Government and business press releases for Ontario's Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) that came into effect on July 1, 2010, the rhetoric used to sell the HST as a positive benefit to society failed to convince the majority of Ontario's citizens that tax reform was beneficial. By comparing the classical Aristotelian elements of ethos, pathos, and logos of the Premier of Ontario's YouTube message on HST to the Ontario Chamber of Commerce's press release on HST, and considering previous Canadian regional tax reform messages, we can understand the influences on the Ontario government's choice of rhetoric and the impact of the rhetoric that adapted by the Province. This article may help practitioners of the art of technical communication understand how to better communicate difficult messages.