Archive for the ‘Governance’ Category
Harper’s pension reform moves breed needless resentment
Feb 02 2012
Harper doesn’t want ideas. He wants a quick, made-in-Ottawa solution… He has a parliamentary majority. What he can’t do is stop Canadians from questioning his rationale (numerous actuarial reports show Old Age Security is affordable); questioning his motives (streamlined environmental rules would help oil producers); and questioning his trustworthiness (despite his claims to the contrary, immigrants fear he will restrict the intake of “non-productive’ newcomers such as grandparents, siblings and refugees.)…
Tags: immigration, participation, pensions
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Pension reform raises questions about effect in provinces
Feb. 02, 2012
Several provinces require citizens to prove they receive the federal Guaranteed Income Supplement for low-income seniors to qualify for their own programs aimed at helping poor seniors… If Ottawa raises the current eligibility age of 65 for Old Age Security and the GIS… it would impact these other programs… The GIS is a top-up program tied to Old Age Security… [which] can only be claimed by seniors with incomes under $16,368… “The interaction with provincial programs will exacerbate the impact on low-income seniors”
Tags: budget, ideology, pensions, poverty, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Harper’s fixes aren’t for the long term
Jan. 29, 2012
Harper’s pretty good at quick fixes like cutting red tape, cutting off parliamentary debate and cutting corners. He’s comfortable dealing with problems in the short term instead of tackling the more admittedly difficult causes of problems that might take a little longer and cost more to deal with. Filling jails with aboriginal youth does nothing for First Nations. Filling them with the mentally ill isn’t the way to make streets safe. Efficiency and decisiveness are to be admired in government. But Canada is more than a network of pipelines and a repository of riches waiting to be taken.
Tags: economy, ideology, privatization, rights, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
The Liberals need a new leader: What about Bob?
Jan. 28, 2012
Mr. Rae is one of the people “driving this vision” of the party as an engaged, open network that reaches out across all kinds of channels to build community and draw young people into a real discussion about ideas. “The party needs a leader who understands this generation, their culture, their modus operandi… as a self-defined “recovering politician,” he developed a reputation for taking on difficult issues: the Air India bombing, the restructuring of the Red Cross, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the crisis at Burnt Church and nation-building in the Forum of Federations.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, multiculturalism, Native, participation, standard of living, youth
Posted in Governance History | No Comments »
Dwight Duncan demands Ottawa release censored report showing Ontario is shortchanged by equalization
Jan 26 2012
Finance Minister Dwight Duncan is demanding Ottawa release a classified federal report that reveals Ontario gets shortchanged by the national equalization wealth-sharing scheme… “The report makes it increasingly clear that because of the policies of the government of Canada, Ontario families are subsidizing programs and services in other parts of Canada that Ontarians themselves do not enjoy”… “It’s time that the biases against Ontario be removed and that we begin to look at this thing realistically.”
Tags: budget, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Harper wins when voters snooze
Jan. 27, 2012
Many [voters] have given up – in cynicism or despair. They turn their back on politics, don’t bother to vote, even imagine it is fashionable to remain aloof. They claim all politicians are the same, but they aren’t. They claim it doesn’t matter which party holds power, but it does… Nothing seems to penetrate public indifference – to Harper’s benefit… waiting four more years for Conservatives to self-destruct – isn’t a strategy. It’s a confession of impotence.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, participation, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
$100-billion in expenditures that no one notices
Jan. 23, 2012
Tax expenditures serve a public policy purpose without the need of an army of bureaucrats in administration. They can be implemented virtually overnight, and can be easily tweaked. [but]… they are very difficult to take away. Canada is a leader in the use of tax expenditures in the sense that our uptake is more than 50 per cent above the OECD average… In the past five years the value of tax expenditures has risen 2.3 per cent, far less than the increase in the size of government… [however] Tax expenditures represent a major claim on the federal treasury and their economic and social benefits need to be put to the test.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Beware Ottawa bearing gifts: Classic federalism is back
Jan. 17, 2012
The federal government has involved itself in numerous areas of provincial jurisdiction, including health, education and welfare, by using the so-called spending power… on the assumption that the federal government can spend money… for any purpose at all, even if the purpose is a matter of provincial, not federal jurisdiction… Executive federalism… has contributed mightily to the problem by generating so many shared-cost programs… the revival of classical federalism is an essential part of the revival of classical liberalism, with emphasis on smaller government, lower taxes and balanced budgets.
Tags: economy, ideology, tax
Posted in Governance Delivery System | No Comments »
Tax breaks the same as spending
Jan. 14, 2012
… the main appeal of loopholes to politicians isn’t what they do for culture, the economy or fairness but for re-election prospects… Loopholes amount to nearly 60% of net revenue. If all this were counted as the spending it really is, instead of dishonestly entered as a frugal, small-government reduction in revenue, federal budgets would top $350 billion, a quarter over their on-paper $280 billion. And if it didn’t exist, personal income tax rates could be slashed by a third. (The 67 corporate ones worth about $26 billion, against just over $30 billion in net revenue, are even worse.)
Tags: budget, ideology, tax
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Stephen Harper and the Big Oil Party of Canada
16 Jan. 2012
Canadian governments pre-Harper actually balanced their promotion of corporate interests… That practice, where no budget was ever presented to Parliament before being vetted by the most powerful CEOs in the country, effectively ended when Stephen Harper became prime minister… It might have something to do with the fact that they can’t buy favours anymore, with the new election financing rules. But actually, it goes back 20 years to the formation of the Reform Party… Not only was Alberta the most “free market” province of all, it was the one that resisted most vigorously the social democratic state that evolved in the 1960s.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology
Posted in Governance History | 1 Comment »
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