Archive for the ‘Debates’ Category

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Ontario not facing ‘debt wall,’ says study of province’s fiscal health

Thursday, January 21st, 2016

“The Wynne government was elected with an activist mandate, yet it has always allowed concerns about debt and deficits to hamstring that agenda… Part of the debt increase is due to the changes in accounting rules, not a result of profligate public spending (which is, per capita, the lowest in Canada)”… the province’s economy grew at an annualized rate of 3.5. per cent in the third quarter of 2015… with household spending, business investment, and net exports all contributing to the overall increase

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Educate employers on responsibilities to workers

Thursday, January 21st, 2016

… inspections of temporary work agencies in 2015 and 2013 that found three-quarters of those audited had broken regulations in the employment act… not paying employees overtime, public holiday or vacation pay – or even their basic wages… Either three-quarters of companies that provide precarious employment are knowingly breaking the law, or they are unaware of all the regulations… the most vulnerable workers… 52 per cent of workers in the GTA and Hamilton region — are paying a price.

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How should Canada see the TPP? Depends on how we see the world

Saturday, January 16th, 2016

… to ensure that Canadian patent rights are fully protected in parts of the world where legal systems are less mature. That’s what TPP does… Canada could, and should, be a global powerhouse in dairy – like tiny New Zealand. Instead, dairy, poultry and egg producers fight for the right to remain small… critics take the standard defensive view, a limited zero-sum analysis by looking only at the concessions and ignoring the gains and potential benefits.

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Keys to developing a domestic growth strategy for Canada

Friday, January 15th, 2016

The current personal and corporate tax systems have become too complex and inefficient… This means moving to a model that depends less on income taxes and more on consumption taxes… In 2014-15, personal income taxes accounted for 48.1 per cent of total revenue and corporate income taxes 14.0 per cent. GST tax revenue accounted for 11.1 per cent of total revenue. This mix needs to be changed.

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Think of the economy as an ecosystem, not a machine

Friday, January 8th, 2016

… the economy is commonly described as if it were some sort of a machine, like a car… An economy, by contrast, at least in a free society, is not meant to do just one thing, to achieve one ambition, but to co-ordinate everybody’s ambitions, disparate or even opposed as they may be. It is a network of interdependence, in which each person’s use of scarce resources must somehow be accommodated to every other’s.

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Canada’s less-educated youth need job opportunities, too

Tuesday, January 5th, 2016

… there will always be some who are not interested in formal schooling after high school… Where Canada performs less well is in offering active labour market programs, such as training and job search assistance, to young people who are no longer in school and need help in making the transition to work, often because of a lack of skills… there is plenty of evidence… that, if they are well designed and implemented, they can benefit young workers who need help.

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Trans-Pacific Partnership is a wonderful idea – for China

Sunday, December 27th, 2015

… the TPP authors appear keen to return us to the era of 19th-century trade secrets…. the current U.S. patent system is detrimental to innovation. Extensive research has demonstrated that the more patents are issued in a technological area, the less innovation results. This is in direct contradiction of the basic rationale for having a patent system, which is the granting of a limited monopoly in exchange for higher rates of innovation and faster diffusion of new knowledge.

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Being clean and green comes with a cost

Monday, December 14th, 2015

Economists told us coal was costing us $4.4-billion every year in health and environmental costs… shutting down Ontario coal plants was the biggest single CO2 reduction in all of North America… like taking seven million cars off the road… our government opened the province to clean, renewable energy – which made Ontario a leader in wind and solar-power generation… This is the result of more than $27-billion in private-sector investment creating over 30 manufacturing businesses and 42,000 new jobs.

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Do corporate income tax rate cuts fuel growth, or just cash hoarding?

Wednesday, December 9th, 2015

The study also unearthed evidence indicating that corporate tax cuts actually depressed growth. By reducing rates, Canadian governments contributed to the increased income position of large firms. But rather than investing their enlarged earnings into expansionary industrial projects, Canada’s corporate sector hoarded cash on its balance sheet. The statistical relationship between the CIT rate and corporate cash hoarding is nearly perfectly and inversely correlated…

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Say goodbye to your $10,000 TFSA, but here’s why it’s not so bad

Wednesday, December 9th, 2015

The TFSA has proven to be popular with low-income Canadians who gain no real benefit from registered retirement savings plans, which are geared toward people with high marginal tax rates in their prime working years wanting to defer tax into the future, when they will have a lower marginal rate… TFSA… balances won’t be growing quite as quickly… [but there are] no plans to count withdrawals when it comes to income testing for programs like Old Age Security or the Guaranteed Income Supplement.

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