Archive for the ‘Debates’ Category
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How should Canada see the TPP? Depends on how we see the world
… 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.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living
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Keys to developing a domestic growth strategy for Canada
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.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, standard of living, tax
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Think of the economy as an ecosystem, not a machine
… 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.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology
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Canada’s less-educated youth need job opportunities, too
… 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.
Tags: economy, participation, poverty, standard of living, youth
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Trans-Pacific Partnership is a wonderful idea – for China
… 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.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, privatization, standard of living
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Being clean and green comes with a cost
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.
Tags: budget, economy, globalization, Health, standard of living
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Do corporate income tax rate cuts fuel growth, or just cash hoarding?
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…
Tags: budget, economy, featured, globalization, ideology, standard of living, tax
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Say goodbye to your $10,000 TFSA, but here’s why it’s not so bad
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.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, pensions, standard of living, tax
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Banks profit while cutting staff
Shareholder greed at least has a name — the Canadian Business Corporations Act. This piece of legislation requires companies operating in Canada to maximize shareholder earnings, regardless of how those earnings are generated. Morality and ethics are noteworthy only because of their entire absence. An irony in all of this is that in Canada, and elsewhere, private corporations have the legal status of persons. They enjoy the same legal protections as individuals, but clearly have none of the moral or ethical responsibilities of individuals living in a civil society.
Tags: economy, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living
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How does your salary stack up to the rest of the country? A look at what Canadians make
Statistics Canada provide pretty good data on income, but this is based on the income that is reported to the Canada Revenue Agency. We should probably bump up the income table slightly to recognize unreported income whether that comes from doing odd jobs, tips in the service industry or any unreported cash income… According to StatsCan, the median income (plus our 10 per cent factor) in Canada in 2013 was $35,200… not everyone is working full time. These percentiles include all taxpayers.
Tags: economy, standard of living
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