Target deal not about CanCon — it’s about easing rules on foreign ownership
Monday, July 9th, 2012
Jul 7, 2012
The news is that the minister has approved foreign ownership of a cultural distribution business, thereby once again setting a precedent that breaks policy. At least one expert in the legal tangle known as the Investment Canada Act says Friday’s Target decision is another sign that Ottawa will soon announce new cultural investment rules… the old formal blanket prohibitions on foreign ownership will soon be replaced.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, privatization
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
The Chopping Block: 1. Canada Health Infoway
Thursday, September 29th, 2011
Sep 29, 2011
… the objective was to electronically hook something like 400,000 health care professionals, pharmacists and doctors, more than 700 hospitals, thousands of private clinics, and 33 million Canadians into one big national interoperable system… Health Infoway has in the past suggested a total of $10-billion to $12-billion might be needed. But that number is clearly a gross underestimate. The spending is said to be worth it, because the benefits are measured in the billions annually. But such benefits are generally based on fanciful number-crunching by hired consultants who’s brief is to generate a rationale for the spending.
Tags: budget, Health
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
Jack Layton’s hidden agenda
Saturday, April 30th, 2011
Apr 29, 2011
… here’s a core statement from the preamble outlining the “principles of democratic socialism” that guide the party: That the production and distribution of goods and services shall be directed to meeting the social and individual needs of people within a sustainable environment and economy and not to the making of profit; To modify and control the operations of the monopolistic productive and distributive organizations through economic and social planning. Towards these ends and where necessary, the extension of the principle of social ownership….
Tags: ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | 2 Comments »
Minzbergism versus corporate tax cuts
Wednesday, April 13th, 2011
Apr 11, 2011
In a market economy, a tax on profits forces a corporation to make more pretax profits to increase net after-tax profits. To increase pretax profits will mean either higher prices or, more likely, reduced spending — on wages, machinery, equipment — to boost profits. When the government raises taxes, it takes away money for wages and investment. If it cuts taxes, it makes more available for wages and investments. Or it might free up money for dividends, which would then be taxable in the hands of shareholders.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, tax
Posted in Debates | 1 Comment »
The crisis no leader is talking about
Thursday, April 7th, 2011
Apr 6, 2011
One key element of the Dodge analysis is that the looming cost increases for health care are not insurmountable. The emphasis — rightly — is on the idea that increasing total Canadian spending on health care from 12% to as much as 18.5% of GDP, or $42,000 per family, is “not undesirable or unsustainable.”… Whatever the number, the point of Chronic Healthcare Spending Disease is that the spending projections cannot be met under current health care laws and funding arrangements. Something has to give in the hearts and minds of Canadians about how health care is paid for and provided.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, privatization, tax
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Tories will never cut income tax rates
Friday, April 1st, 2011
Mar. 31, 2011
To pay for the family cut, other Canadians will have to continue to pay marginal tax rates that are too high. The family tax cut, in some ways, is just another tax expenditure, a special tax treatment aimed at fulfilling some social-policy objective. The major beneficiaries are likely to be higherincome single-earner couples with children. Everybody else is out of luck.
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
There is no Harper Nation
Saturday, March 26th, 2011
Mar 25, 2011
… Harper Conservatives have singularly failed to change the Canadian ideological landscape. Instead, Canadian politics changed the Conservatives… This week’s budget, in which $2-billion in loose cash was promptly distributed to a score of special interests and political agendas, left in place a $40-billion deficit for 2010 and solidified a $100-billion increase in the national debt over five years… There must be something more to Canada than an ever-increasing role for governments, bureaucrats and politician to fill a constant demand for more and more government spending and intervention.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, tax
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
U.K. spending cuts foretell our future
Friday, October 22nd, 2010
October 20, 2010
The reforms certainly contain some dramatic policy moves, including cutting £18-billion ($29-billion) from some welfare payments, raising the age of eligibility for the national pension plan to 66 from 65, the loss of 500,000 government jobs and cuts to spending that average 19% over four years in most non-core government departments… economists now believe Canada’s long-run growth is likely limited to 2%, with nominal growth at maybe 4%. At that level, funding debt reduction is going to require more aggressive fiscal action than the reduction effort of the 1990s.
Tags: budget, economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
The new Prohibition
Tuesday, August 10th, 2010
Aug. 7, 2010
There is no… need here to review the already well-documented grotesque criminal culture and social deterioration spawned by the U.S.-led war on drugs — a war the Conservatives are now bringing to the streets of Canada. The enforcement of these new regulations, aimed a low-level providers of services that have willing buyers, will be as effective in curbing genuine criminal activity as the other organized crime measures have been, which is not at all. They are likely to make things worse.
Tags: budget, corrections, crime prevention, ideology
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
Beware ‘pensioncare’
Saturday, May 8th, 2010
May 08, 2010
The main argument at work here is the belief that large institutions such as the CPP Investment Board and major state agencies such as the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan can investment money more efficiently and at lower costs than a private mutual fund or other market-driven investment firm. Individual Canadians are apparently too dumb to manage their own money in a market setting, and it is the role of the state to intervene to save investors from themselves.
Tags: pensions, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
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