Archive for the ‘Governance Debates’ 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
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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
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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
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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
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Stephen Harper apes Republican nuttiness
Jan 11 2012
… policies that have been drawn from extremist Republican theology… • Opposing gun controls… • Cutting taxes for corporations and the rich on the discredited theory that they would create jobs. • Decrying big government while merrily milking it for pork barrelling… and splurging on big-ticket military procurement — thereby racking up deficits. • Spending billions on jails when crime rates are at a 25-year low. • Ignoring expert opinion, be it on climate change, taxation, incarceration or a scientific national census…
Tags: economy, ideology, tax
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Flaherty’s tax credits cost Ottawa billions
Jan. 10, 2012
The credits featured prominently in government advertising, allowing the Conservatives to target their message toward various segments of the population…. the annual cost of the Tax Free Savings Account – announced in the 2008 budget – has grown from $65-million in lost revenue in 2009 to $220-million in 2011… the Children’s Fitness Credit and the Public Transit Tax Credit, appears to have stabilized at $115-million and $150-million respectively… “They call these things tax cuts, but in fact they’re expenditures and they’ve only gone to make the tax code look like a piece of Swiss cheese.”
Tags: budget, economy, standard of living, tax
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This Year, Put the Country Ahead of the Party
Jan. 1, 2012
There is a deep malaise in Canadian democracy rooted, it seems, in a profound alienation from politics and radically lowered expectations of what is possible from government. Much of this is the result of a deliberate strategy of voter-suppression employed by the Conservatives, a strategy of making politics so offensive and good government so unimaginable that millions of people simply tune out, as if it has nothing to do with them.
Tags: budget, ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
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Be very afraid: Stephen Harper is inventing a new Canada
Dec. 16, 2011
It’s in the nature of true believers and ideologues to believe that any means to their sacred ends are justified. This makes them extremely dangerous people. It’s also typical of such people that they’re often motivated by unfathomable resentment and anger, a compulsion not just to better but to destroy their adversaries. These are good descriptions of Stephen Harper and those closest to him… A central tenet of the new reality is the repudiation of the need for anything as irrelevant as evidence, facts or rationality whenever they are inconvenient.
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
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… Public policy that is based on evidence
Dec. 28, 2011
… politicians must… be responsive to the concerns of members of the public, corporations, lobbyists, think-tanks, and yes, journalists… and given what’s at stake, it’s imperative that politicians commit to supporting evidence-based policy… This means that regardless of their political ideology, they should propose and implement policies that, according to the evidence, will actually reduce crime or homelessness… we have heard a great deal about populist politics… Now it is time to hear about evidence-based politics…
Tags: ideology, standard of living
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Canadian pollsters facing greater scrutiny
Dec 30 2011
The call for stricter measures on how polls are conducted and reported is coming from some leading pollsters, who worry that the credibility of their business is getting dragged down by lax or controversial standards in Canada… “We are distorting our democracy, confusing voters, and destroying what should be a source of truth in election campaigns — the unbiased, truly scientific public opinion poll”… But unlike its U.S. counterpart, the American Association for Public Opinion Research, the MRIA has yet to censure or discipline any of its members since it was established.
Tags: ideology, rights, standard of living
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