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Ontario staggers under burden of fiscal federalism
Saturday, March 24th, 2012
Mar 06 2012
in 2009-10, Ontario, with 39 per cent of the Canadian population, contributed 39 per cent to federal revenues, but benefited from only 34 per cent of federal spending — a gap worth about $12.3 billion or 2.1 per cent of Ontario’s GDP. The report concludes that this — among other factors — demonstrates the “perverse structure of Canadian fiscal federalism.”… The operation of fiscal federalism and federal spending decisions that take money out of Ontario at a time when its fiscal capacity is below average is indeed “perverse” and should offend Canadians’ sense of fairness.
Tags: economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Providing shelter for the unemployed
Friday, November 18th, 2011
Nov. 18, 2011
Many groups of workers are poorly served by the current system, including the self-employed, part-timers, those who hold multiple jobs, contract workers, immigrants and younger workers. Those who fall outside of the EI umbrella are just as poorly served by the system in Halifax and St. John’s as they are in Kingston and Saskatoon… a new national framework is required, one more transparent, client-centred and equitable.
Tags: economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Policy Context | 2 Comments »
Ontario’s 3 simple questions
Sunday, March 27th, 2011
Mar 27 2011
Ontario voters should ask all parties… three very simple questions: • Will you ensure that Ontario gets the same deal as Quebec or B.C. or Nova Scotia? • Will you commit to treating Canadians in all provinces equally? • Are you committed to investing in Ontario’s economic transformation — just as surely as you are committed to investing in Atlantic or Western Canada? Principled, equal treatment of Canadians and provinces would return our federal-provincial financial arrangements to a principled footing. They would make Canada stronger. They would reduce divisiveness.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Equality Policy Context | No Comments »
Bringing coherence to our fragmented EI system
Saturday, January 22nd, 2011
Jan. 21, 2011
Canada’s broken federal-provincial relations victimize the unemployed. A lack of co-ordination between those making decisions about the federal EI program and provincial social assistance programs creates gaps that are unjustifiable from a labour-market-efficiency and social-justice perspective. A coherent system would be run by one order of government. Other countries have one system. Canada has two parallel systems that are barely on speaking terms.
Tags: economy, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Yesterday’s EI is failing today’s Canada
Wednesday, January 19th, 2011
Employment Insurance in Canada is broken… But attempts at serious reform, such as Lloyd Axworthy’s Social Security Review in 1994, always come up against the same old story in Canada: regional politics. It is time for those outside government to identify a new model to help Canada’s unemployed. We can’t wait for the federal government to act. Canadians need to provide it with a path forward–and the necessary national consensus that this path is the right one.
Tags: economy, standard of living, tax
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Be fair to Ontario
Friday, November 19th, 2010
Nov. 17, 2010
Canada is no longer a country of a prosperous “centre” and a needy “periphery.” Yet Ontarians still contribute about $20-billion more than they get back in federal transfers and services for purposes of redistribution to other parts of the country. There are two possible solutions to federal policies that are poorly designed for Ontario: Fix federal programs so they treat all provinces and all Canadians equally or gut the federal government — as proposed by Bernier — and let Ontario keep more of its own money and fund and define its own programs.
Tags: budget, featured, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Dissatisfied Ontario no longer happy camper of Confederation
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
Feb 24 201
In 2004, just 27 per cent of Ontarians believed the province was not treated with the respect it deserved in the country; today that number has risen to 51 per cent…
In many provinces, there is an expectation that Ontario will eventually compromise its own interests for the sake of national unity… On an issue like climate change, Ontarians are not going to be willing to pay the bill while other provinces get an easier ride.
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
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