Wealthy Canadians get huge tax breaks, even with budget changes to capital gains
The tax system is much tougher on working people, who make up the vast majority of Canadians, including almost everyone in the lower and middle class. Working people pay taxes on their full working incomes, with few exemptions, and their taxes are deducted before they even receive their paycheques. Then there are those who own capital — stocks, bonds and other property… “A buck is a buck is a buck.” The budget’s tax changes are a small but important step in that direction.
Child & Family
Seniors’ Care Surge will require Smart Policies
Among the key recommendations: (i) provinces should invest in public home and community care while also considering mechanisms to expand the private provision of these services; (ii) Ontario and other provinces should consider providing a refundable tax credit for senior renters to access retirement homes and supportive services and; (iii) current capacity and fiscal constraints mean that expanding both publicly and privately funded options will be necessary.
Justin Trudeau announces national school food program amid rising grocery prices
Canada is the only G7 nation without a national school food program, and ranks 37th out of 41 of the world’s wealthiest countries when it comes to providing healthy food for children… one of the reasons for that was the lack of a national school food program… “We’ll finally be able to level the playing field”… the government plans to work with provinces, territories and Indigenous groups to expand existing programs, some of which are funded by under-resourced organizations.
Education
Ontario budget gets failing grade from university professors
“Universities are in a crisis that the province manufactured through chronic underfunding.” … OCUFA was glad to see an extension of a freeze on tuition fees for postsecondary students, but the government did not invest in universities for this lost revenue, expecting universities to continue to do much more with much less… $1.3 billion for Ontario’s colleges and universities over the next three years… is eight times less than… OCUFA’s recommendation for university funding to reach just the Canadian funding average.
Ontario needs to pony up more cash for colleges and universities
A short-term, piecemeal funding plan won’t work. The Ford PCs won’t be able to solve decades of chronic post-secondary underfunding in a year or two or three. But they can begin the process of instituting stable, predictable, and sufficient funding… It’s the smart thing to do. It’s the right thing to do. And in the long run, the money the government invests in education today will return more than it’s worth.
Employment
Economic growth tops the priority list for Canadian policymakers — here’s why
We should be making room for measures of personal and collective well-being other than GDP. But we also need economic growth — not just so we can consume more, or generate more revenue for governments, but so we can take better care of one another… growth could include better housing, better food and better health care, or even a better defence posture. And it need not require consuming more natural resources.
Ottawa puts up $50M in federal budget to hedge against job-stealing AI
“There is a significant transformation of the economy and society on the horizon around artificial intelligence”… Some jobs will be lost, others will be created… AI is an issue “across sectors, but certainly clerical and customer service jobs are more vulnerable… two types of skills it makes sense to focus on in retraining — computational thinking, or understanding how computers operate and make decisions, and skills dealing with data.
Equality
Wealthy Canadians get huge tax breaks, even with budget changes to capital gains
The tax system is much tougher on working people, who make up the vast majority of Canadians, including almost everyone in the lower and middle class. Working people pay taxes on their full working incomes, with few exemptions, and their taxes are deducted before they even receive their paycheques. Then there are those who own capital — stocks, bonds and other property… “A buck is a buck is a buck.” The budget’s tax changes are a small but important step in that direction.
Liberals tax the rich, but not enough to be considered populist
… in recent decades, business interests have strong-armed governments into redesigning the marketplace to favour their own interests, through tax and regulatory changes, and the rewriting of labour laws to disempower workers. These “neo-liberal” changes haven’t brought us the productivity gains that were promised, but they have made us a much less equal society… We need to reverse the “neo-liberal” policies that are responsible for such extreme inequality.
Health
We need to revolutionize how we organize health care in Canada
… “achieving high value for patients must become the overarching goal of health care delivery, with value defined as the health outcomes per dollar spent.” … Our government should focus less on who they are paying, and more on what they want to buy… This would facilitate innovations in care delivery across the system, and allow for more investment in integrated care programs that span the full continuum. Funding could focus on all-in coverage… including drugs, home care and virtual innovations.
Protecting public health care from private investors
In Canada, a single private equity firm already owns the largest national network of independent surgical centres — 53 operating rooms spread across 14 centres — in Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and B.C… Approximately 90 per cent are publicly funded through partnerships with provincial health systems… Should profit-driven investors own health care facilities?
Inclusion
One-in-seven people who access food banks nationally rely on provincial disability income support. In many provinces, that means living more than $800 below the poverty line each month… it was never about seeing just another income support program come into effect. It was about extending the type of tangible support to Canadians with disabilities living in severe poverty, helping them overcome its relentless cycle.
Here are some dos and don’ts to help tackle ableism
Ableism goes beyond individual fear or prejudice. It influences who we see as having a life worth living and who is seen as a burden. That, in turn, impacts our practices and policies. We all have a role to play in challenging ableism, which may sometimes leave us feeling awkward or unsure if we’re doing and saying the right things. But, to our knowledge being awkward isn’t deadly. Ableism too often is.
Social Security
Ontario pays $320K in legal fight over its cancellation of basic income program
After battling five years against a class-action certification process, the Ontario government has paid $320,000 to the law firm spearheading a lawsuit against the Ford government over its decision to cancel a guaranteed basic income pilot project… One-third of respondents reported that the pilot gave them enough money to go to school. One in five said it funded their transportation to work. Almost three-quarters said they started eating better and nearly three in five said they managed to improve their housing. A large majority felt less stress, anxiety and depression.
… the feds have placed primary responsibility for funding disability-related social assistance firmly back in the province’s court. The budget calls out “the inadequacy of disability assistance provided by many provinces,” while saying that the federal government “aspires to see the combined amount of federal and provincial … income supports for persons with disabilities grow to the level of Old Age Security (OAS) and the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS).”
Governance
We are rich Canadians and we support higher capital gains taxes
Ottawa wants to raise taxes for Canada’s ultra-rich. Rich people like us want that, too… with 1 per cent of the country’s residents holding over a quarter of all wealth. We need higher taxes to level out this rising wealth inequality… to fund new spending on priorities like Old Age Security, clean economy, medical care, child care, and housing, but it doesn’t go far enough to address class distortions… we’d also like to see a “super wealth tax,” an inheritance tax, and progressive property taxes
Trudeau would be wise to raise the GST to 7 per cent instead of reforming the capital gains tax
… the GST has underwritten Canada’s social safety net for more than 30 years. In 2006… the GST accounted for 30.6 per cent of all federal tax revenue… Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and finance minister Chrystia Freeland have sought refuge in progressive populism with their plan to expand the capital gains tax. But the sustainable policy choice would be to put those two points back on the GST.
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