Archive for the ‘Debates’ Category
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Buried report reveals corporate giants gained the most from billions spent to support business in Ontario
Of the nearly $5 billion a year Ontario spends on various direct and indirect business subsidies and tax credits, 200 of the province’s oldest and largest companies are the biggest beneficiaries… According to the “Report of the Expert Panel Examining Ontario’s Business Support Program, … Ontario’s business support programs favour the largest and oldest companies, the companies least likely to be in need of support.”
Tags: budget, economy, globalization, ideology, jurisdiction, privatization, standard of living, tax
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Crack down on global tax havens
Apart from cracking down on outright cheats, the major economies need to rethink tax treaties that allow jurisdictions… to flourish as tax havens. There needs to be a lot more transparency and accountability about the tens of trillions of dollars that are being routed through these havens, or parked there, to avoid paying taxes. There’s some concern, too, that Canada is adding to the global problem by making it too easy to create shell companies here.
Tags: economy, featured, globalization, ideology, jurisdiction, privatization, standard of living, tax
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It’s time governments and unions stepped in to protect the rights of precarious workers
Enhance the Canada Pension Plan… Make Employment Insurance benefits easier to get… Create a national pharmacare program… Create a national, affordable child care system… / The Ontario government should: Raise the minimum wage to at least $12 an hour, and aim for $15… Beef up the Employment Standards Act… Enforce the Employment Standards Act… creating fairer conditions for all employees.
Tags: child care, economy, featured, globalization, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, pharmaceutical, standard of living
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A national carbon tax is the better way to square the Liberals’ deficit circle
Sooner or later, there will have to be a reconciliation of revenue and spending… Instead of an increase in the GST rate, a better option is some version of a national carbon tax… A carbon tax ramping up over the next decade to, say, $120 for every tonne of emissions would raise about 2 per cent of GDP annually when fully in place… Admittedly, this is not a revenue-neutral proposal that offsets carbon revenue with reductions in other taxes.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, tax
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Deficit hysteria breaks out in wake of Liberal budget
The size of the Liberal deficit is easily overstated. Unifor economist Jordan Brennan has produced a table showing that in the 1980s, the Mulroney Conservatives ran a budget deficit equal to 50 per cent of government revenue. The 2016 federal deficit amounts to 10 per cent of government revenue… The problem with the 2016 Trudeau budget is that the deficit is too small, not too large.
Business waits for consumers to up purchases before investing; the world economy is sluggish; and governments need to step up.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
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Free trade deals have failed Canada
… with free trade deals, employers have gained tremendous leverage over labour with the simple threat of “accept our offer of a low wage or we ship your job overseas.” … I sure don’t see free trade bringing us tonnes more good paying jobs… If the argument that technology has replaced many of the jobs, why did factories move to cheaper labour markets… It’s really ownership vs labour… China did not dictate that American companies move to China
Tags: economy, featured, globalization, ideology, participation, privatization, rights, standard of living
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How high-tax Canada is driving away billionaire entrepreneurs like Murray Edwards
… there are already plenty of high-net-worth Canadians living in London, Monaco and the Caribbean. These are choices the ultra-wealthy face that make them different from the rest of us… the generous “non-domiciled” tax breaks in Britain that allow wealthy foreigners to live there but pay almost no income taxes — successfully luring to the U.K. waves of migratory billionaires, celebrities and Russian oligarchs… Canada’s average combined top marginal tax rate, at 53 per cent, is now one of the highest in the Western world
Tags: budget, economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living, tax
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Why are companies competing with EI for workers?
Temporary foreign workers are attractive to an employer because the worker has virtually no rights. Once they come to Canada to work, a TFW can’t leave one company for a better job elsewhere and they can’t quit or they’ll be sent home… What [Employers] want is to be able to bring in workers year round to avoid Canadian workers all together. This policy would drive down wages and cause more people looking for a decent paycheque to move…
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, immigration, participation, standard of living
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Deficit budget sets new tone for Canada
For more than 20 years, federal budgets have worked to shrink the public’s expectations of the role of federal government in our lives, suggesting that the best government could do was offer a buffet of tax cuts at budget time… a false narrative… that government deficits should be avoided… locked governments into prolonged inaction as roads, bridges, sewer and water systems that our grandparents’ generation built began to crumble; as poverty remained unchecked.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living, tax
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Ottawa’s deficit-spending budget an admission that rate cuts aren’t the answer
… most business groups, usually the shrillest of critics, are behind the Liberal government’s plans… This new consensus is really a capitulation. It says that, after eight years of manipulating interest rates, that policy hasn’t worked. No amount of pushing on that string has created growth… You spend money you don’t have (but promise to pay back). You hope to stimulate demand so that businesses will follow along and economic activity will increase.
Tags: budget, economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living, tax
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