Archive for the ‘Governance Policy Context’ Category
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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
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$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
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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
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So-called tax breaks don’t shrink governments, they swell deficits
Dec. 25, 2011
According to the theory, tax cuts don’t just spur private investment, they actually starve governments of the food they need to grow. The result is that swelling deficits quickly force governments to tighten their belts and become smaller… A thought-provoking study by Texas A&M economists Joseph Ura and Erica Socker concluded that “starving the beast” does exactly the opposite of the theory. And it’s at the root of the fiscal mess in the U.S. Tax cuts actually increase demand for government services…
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, standard of living, tax
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Canada’s First Nation policies cause friction: U.S. diplomatic cable
Dec. 4, 2011
“Lack of a standard model for resolving comprehensive land claims, self-government agreements, and the absence of a clear legal definition of what constitutes an ‘aboriginal right’ have resulted in complex multi-year negotiations, a significant claims backlog, and friction between aboriginal communities and the federal and provincial governments,” the cable says… dated Aug. 21, 2009.
Tags: Health, Native, poverty, rights, standard of living
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How to revive Canada’s dream of social democracy
Nov 26 2011
Conservatives commonly claim that opinion has shifted to the right, that people want less government. The evidence is rather that they have lost faith in the capacity of our political system to deliver the kind of government most Canadians want. That is reflected both in the low turnout at elections and the recent strength, among those who did go to the polls, of the party that had long gathered little more than a protest vote. There will be no reforming government, however, until either the NDP or a revitalized Liberal party has developed, and taken to the electorate, a realistic agenda for social democracy.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
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The Gridlock Where Debts Meet Politics
November 5, 2011
On the most basic level, affluent countries are facing sharply increasing claims on their resources even as those resources are growing less quickly than they once were… the debate is about much more than just partisan advantage or the next election. It is a philosophical debate… the “no-growth trap.” In the short term, this trap takes the form of resistance to emergency measures… Longer term, the trap is created by resistance to the higher taxes and reduced benefits necessary to return countries to financial stability.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living, tax
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Tory crime bill is too tough on the provinces
Nov. 02, 2011
Ottawa’s crime agenda could cost the provinces billions of dollars over the next few years, and… Quebec and Ontario say they will refuse to pay. The tough-on-crime omnibus bill now before Parliament is hardly a sterling example of co-operative federalism. It is heavy-handed federal policy-making, which (along with some previous crime bills) will cost the provinces dearly… How should Quebec and Ontario pay for extra prison costs – by cutting education, health care, daycare? By raising taxes?
Tags: budget, corrections, ideology
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The flow of political donations in Ontario
Oct 5, 2011
The province allows donors to give up to $9,300 to a party each year, well above the federal limit of $1,100 for individual donations… Of the more than $14-million that Ontario’s three main parties have collected in pre-campaign donations of at least $100 this year alone, nearly $9-million came from corporations and unions.
Tags: economy, ideology, participation
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The limits of good vs. evil
Sep 30, 2011
Fighting the politics of evil with politics certainly beats fighting it with drones, targeted assassination, and ground troops, but Wolfe’s advice may be a council of perfection, correct in theory but impossible to apply in practice… Wolfe argues as if the only obstacle that prevents us from successfully confronting political evil is our own moral self-righteousness. He has done a thorough job chastening our pride, but our pride is not the only problem. Stopping people who will stop at nothing takes force. The problem remains if and when to use it.
Tags: crime prevention, globalization, ideology, rights, standard of living
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