Tax Cheaters, Give Us Back Our Money
Monday, November 5th, 2012
November 5, 2012
… more and more Canadian investment is going offshore to avoid taxes: it was 10 per cent in 1987 and 24 per cent in 2011… a Université du Québec à Montréal study estimated that between 1991 and 2003 the Big Five Canadian banks managed to avoid $16 billion in provincial and federal taxes through the use of offshore subsidiaries… the systematic use of tax havens is nothing less than grand theft.
Tags: economy, rights, standard of living, tax
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
How Big Ideas Become Government Policy
Tuesday, October 23rd, 2012
October 22, 2012
Michael Walker, stated: “If you want to change society you have to change the ideological fabric of society.” … it would take time… Until the left begins to unleash some truly big ideas it will be on the sidelines watching the right continue to push the envelope with ever more dangerous ones… the group which most urgently needs to look for some big ideas of its own is the Canadian union movement.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, participation, pharmaceutical, rights, standard of living
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Euro Treaty Would Give Harper More Power at Home
Monday, September 24th, 2012
24 Sep. 2012
Like other trade agreements, this one systematically weakens the democratic decision-making authority of all levels of government. As such, it is Harper’s Trojan horse. In the guise of expanding “trade” with the EU, he makes progress in his goal of emasculating democratic governance… Two of the most egregious impacts have to do with Medicare and government purchasing.
Tags: economy, globalization, Health, ideology, rights, standard of living
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Driven to Dismantle Community
Monday, June 18th, 2012
June 18, 2012
Yet in the decades since the free trade deals were first signed we have gradually stopped talking about community and have perhaps forgotten just how critical it is to human health and indeed what it is to be human. The hyper-competitiveness promoted by neo-liberalism and the politicians it has captured is completely at odds with our social natures. Community — the commons — is at the core of what we have lost and reclaiming it will be at the core of any successful social movement that halts and reverses the current trends.
Tags: budget, ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Now Is the Time to Talk up Big Ideas
Monday, May 21st, 2012
May 21,2012
While it may seem counterintuitive, now is the time for Canadians who actually believe in government and nation building to be contemplating big ideas, the ones that will take us the next step to equality, economic stability and environmental sustainability. Why? Because if we don’t try to get what we want we won’t even get what we need…. Capitalism will be around for a while yet but its current incarnation, the savage capitalism of Wall Street and deregulation needs to be put to rest… The experiment with government ‘getting out of the way’ of business has been an abject failure.
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Bow Down Canadians, Corporations Are King
Wednesday, February 1st, 2012
Jan. 30, 2012
What kind of society beggars those of its citizens who worked all their lives and now want to retire in dignity while privileging the rich and super-rich by slashing their income taxes and allowing them to transfer wealth to their children untouched? … Since the mid-1980s, and accelerating with the signing of the Canada-U.S. “free trade” deal, the guiding principle of neo-liberalism seems to have been “Ask not what your economy can do for you, ask what you can do for your economy.” … The economy is now defined as the narrow interests of global corporations.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, globalization, ideology, privatization, standard of living, tax
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Stephen Harper and the Big Oil Party of Canada
Tuesday, January 17th, 2012
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 | 2 Comments »
This Year, Put the Country Ahead of the Party
Wednesday, January 4th, 2012
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
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Wake up and Listen to Occupiers
Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011
Nov. 21, 2011
… power is entrenched, protected and ruthless, and it will not be denied easily what it has accumulated over the decades… The occupiers have already made history. They have broken the media and elite-imposed taboo on talking about the destructive impact of inequality on the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world in developing and developed countries. The new feudalism that has been emerging for over twenty years is now exposed. Everyone can see the elephant in the room.
Tags: economy, featured, globalization, ideology, standard of living, youth
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Harper’s Plan to Dismantle Canada’s Safety Nets
Tuesday, November 8th, 2011
Nov. 7, 2011
When Harper stated that we would not recognize the country after he was through, this is in part what he was talking about. Ideology is meaning in the service of power, and the Conservative government, libertarian to its core, intends to create the appearance of an increasingly volunteer society as it systematically guts the social and cultural role of government. Harper hopes to justify massive cuts to programs (and in general the role of the federal government period) by shifting responsibility to charities and foundations.
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, philanthropy, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
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