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So, what expenditures should Canada cut to meet its NATO obligations?
Thursday, March 21st, 2024
About a quarter of all spending is transferred directly to Canadians, either through elderly benefits (Old Age Security and Guaranteed Income Supplement), Employment Insurance benefits and the Canada Child Benefit… Another 20 per cent of Ottawa’s spending is transferred directly to the provincial governments… Equalization payments account for about $24-billion… Interest payments on the debt account for another $47-billion… while Ottawa’s total spending is $500-billion, only $96-billion in operating spending is discretionary
Tags: budget, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Our knowledge-based economy can’t afford to be smug
Monday, March 7th, 2011
March 7, 2011
Globalization is no longer just about factory jobs moving to Asia. It’s affecting everything – resources, banking, high-tech services, the whole shebang. Everything is getting bigger, faster and cruelly cost efficient. Fibre-optic cables spanning the continents have made geography irrelevant… Globalization isn’t going away, and it shouldn’t. Its benefits to the enrichment of human life around the world have far outweighed its costs. But the sooner Canada embraces the possibilities of globalization, the further ahead of the curve we’ll be in creating the yet-unnamed jobs and industries of tomorrow.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Why build half an engineer? [post-secondary funding]
Friday, January 7th, 2011
Jan. 7, 2011
Postsecondary institutions typically have to stand in line with other areas of general program spending, cup in hand, waiting for the surprises that come (or don’t) on budget day… [Alberta’s] provincial Treasury Board has set up a 20-year capital plan that takes into account all infrastructure needs: highways, health facilities, schools. Money is transferred from general revenues into the capital plan where it is essentially held in a separate account… [resulting in] the certainty of knowing how much money is available for years into the future.
Tags: budget, globalization, participation, standard of living
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
Economists should dwell less on quintiles and more on angels
Friday, November 12th, 2010
Nov 12 2010
“When senior executive incomes are triple what they were a few years ago, but the best they can offer their lowest income employees is a 25 per cent cut in wages, do we even care?”… economists’ main preoccupations should really be the advancement of all Canadians, not just the statistical average… The tricky part is knowing how to raise the incomes, skills and literacy levels of those Canadians most vulnerable to falling through the economic cracks. Handouts aren’t the solution, and government programs have been hit-and-miss. But the free market has failed these people.
Tags: economy, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Moving up — way up — the value chain
Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
September 7, 2010
In the bad old days when people were sent to poorhouses for falling on hard times, there was a job called “picking oakum.” … Picking oakum is an extreme example, but it highlights the need for economic strategies that go beyond simply promoting more value-added activity… we need to fully understand that “making things” will not keep Canada prosperous… The good jobs of tomorrow and the industries where we have a chance to develop a comparative advantage are largely at the upper end of the value chain.
Tags: economy, globalization, participation, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
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