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It hurts dancing to supply management’s tune
Friday, December 2nd, 2011
Dec. 02, 2011
After months of prevaricating, the Harper government announced two weeks ago that, yes, it was joining the [Trans Pacific Partnership] but would, of course, protect supply management in the negotiations. Except that other TPP countries don’t agree with Ottawa’s interpretation. For them, no country can join by establishing preconditions… If Canada got an exemption for supply management, then Japan and South Korea would want one for their farmers. Other countries would then demand this or that break, and the TPP’s considerable ambitions would be watered down.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, rights, standard of living
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Remember the Reformers? They’re still here
Wednesday, November 30th, 2011
Nov. 30, 2011
Almost a quarter of a century after its birth, Reform still animates Canadian politics… Reform’s ideas remain alive and kicking inside the Conservative Party – see the Harper government’s use of a majority to push through legislation eliminating the Canadian Wheat Board, toughening the criminal justice system and abolishing the long-gun registry.
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, rights
Posted in Governance History | No Comments »
Who wants to talk about income inequality?
Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011
Nov. 23, 2011
In Canada, the share concerned about poverty/income inequality was 30 per cent, behind health care (of course) at 47 per cent, unemployment/jobs at 39 per cent and taxes at 37 per cent. That ranking showed an increase in concern about poverty/income inequality, since it now ranks well above crime, immigration, environment and climate change… Well-intentioned philanthropy… cannot do much against these market trends and inadequate government programs to offset those market trends.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Debates | 4 Comments »
Another ‘inconvenient truth’: We’re getting older
Sunday, November 6th, 2011
Nov. 05, 2011
The tipping point is this: In 2011, the oldest of the baby boomer generation reaches 65. From now on, Canada’s population profile will slowly age… The consequences will be twofold: Government revenue growth will fall, and government spending obligations will rise. Thus, there’ll be unavoidable pressure for higher taxes or spending cuts, or both… the aging of the population will force us to talk about two options that make most Canadians nervous: higher taxes or significantly changed public programs.
Posted in Child & Family Policy Context | No Comments »
There is no crime epidemic
Friday, November 4th, 2011
Nov. 04, 2011
A recent thorough study of homicides by Tina Hotton Mahony of Statistics Canada lays all the facts before Canadians. It’s too bad – indeed, it’s a tragedy – that these sorts of facts have no influence on the Harper government’s expensive and counterproductive, politically motivated “tough on crime” agenda… this is the government that abolished the long-form census, the method every statistician here and abroad said would produce the most accurate facts. In that file, as in criminal justice and others, it’s a government that either looks simple facts in the face and denies them, or willfully disregards them.
Tags: budget, corrections, crime prevention, featured, ideology
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
Why aren’t we talking about income inequality?
Saturday, October 29th, 2011
Oct. 29, 2011
In Canada, we have fussed a great deal about equality, but not of the income kind. Instead, we’ve spent much money and changed laws to deal with equality of regions and equality (or equity) of ethnicity and gender. In 2011-2012, the federal government will spread $14.7-billion around Canada under the equalization program, which is enshrined in the Constitution… It’s a jerry-rigged system based on a formula no mere mortal can understand, and it produces bizarre results… Income inequality, however, seems to be the kind of inequality that Canadians don’t talk about much.
Tags: economy, ideology, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Universities get an F for failing undergrads
Friday, October 21st, 2011
Oct. 21, 2011
For a generation or so, universities have been powered by two drives: make themselves stronger in research, and chase money from governments that rewarded institutions for accepting more students. The results were bad for the quality of undergraduate education… More students meant bigger classes, because government funding didn’t keep pace with enrolment while professors taught fewer undergraduate classes… Governments… stuffed the students into these universities, raised their fees and sent money for new buildings, then forgot about the quality of their instruction.
Tags: budget, standard of living, youth
Posted in Education Debates | 1 Comment »
Our tax code is pockmarked with costly exemptions
Wednesday, October 19th, 2011
Oct. 19, 2011
… the Harper government has added many new tax expenditures to a tax system already overloaded with them. Program spending is much easier to understand, for parliamentarians, the media and the public… According to the OECD, Canada relies more on tax expenditures than almost any country… Tax expenditures also get short shrift from the Auditor-General, whose office is preoccupied with program spending rather than the “value for money” of the tax system.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, tax
Posted in Governance Delivery System | No Comments »
Supervised injection sites: Ideology comes with big blinkers
Thursday, October 6th, 2011
Oct. 05, 2011
The exercise of ministerial discretion, the court said, must rest on “evidence” and the “principles of fundamental justice.”… “On the facts as found here, there can be only one response: to grant the exemption.” These words are about as blunt as a court can use toward a government whose view of evidence is “arbitrary” and in whose hands decisions based on rights would be “risked.”
Tags: crime prevention, Health, ideology, rights
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
Scary are the Tory measures to combat crime
Saturday, September 24th, 2011
Sep. 24, 2011
Canada is about to adopt policies whose failures are well understood in the U.S. and whose costs will be large but remain unknown. No wonder the government admits its policies are not based on “the latest statistics,” but on another order of analysis – namely, raw politics. The Harper government has this weird contempt for solid evidence… Sloganeering prevailed, as in “tough on crime,” despite the evidence that most of the proposed measures wouldn’t work or had proved to be counterproductive elsewhere.
Tags: budget, corrections, crime prevention, ideology
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
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