Archive for the ‘Governance Debates’ Category
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Horwath promises NDP will give Ontario full dental coverage, convert student loans to grants
… five key promises in the party’s platform for the June 7 election… also include improvements to health and long-term care, returning Hydro One to public ownership while cutting rates, providing universal pharmacare and raising corporate tax rates.. “We are going to make sure every working person in Ontario has dental benefits… The dental program will be called “Ontario Benefits” and will be portable, moving with Ontarians when they switch employers, she said.
Tags: budget, economy, Health, pharmaceutical
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The right way to cut government spending? Focus on core responsibilities
… some of the things government does it could do more efficiently — not by better central planning… but by structural reforms, changes to incentives that reward cost-consciousness rather than empire-building: for example, the “internal markets” that are the future of public health care. The sum of all these changes might well be a government that spent less — but as a consequence, not an objective; not at the expense of its core responsibilities, but by focusing on them.
Tags: budget, featured, Health, ideology, standard of living, tax
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Social conservatives savour victory, thank immigrants
… for most social conservatives, religion is the motivating factor in their political mobilization. More than half a million Muslims immigrated to Canada in the 20 years to 2011… Almost 200,000 Filipino immigrants came to Canada in the five years to 2016, replenishing the pews of the country’s Catholic churches. As with most Canadian Muslims, these Filipino newcomers take their faith ultraseriously… “religious identity and practice are important and growing, in contrast to the broader secularizing trend in Canada.”
Tags: ideology, immigration, multiculturalism
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Liberals aim to limit influence of foreign money on federal elections
The Liberal government hopes to have new rules aimed at limiting the ability of foreign money to influence Canadian federal elections in place before the 2019 vote. Sources suggest the government will reform the Canada Elections Act by introducing measures to try to level the playing field between third parties and political parties, and improve the transparency of donations.
Tags: featured, ideology, participation
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Level electoral playing field by limiting voters’ total financial contributions
Little by little, we are inching towards a sensible system of regulating political financing in this country. We will find the right balance at last when we fully grasp the fundamental principle on which any such system must be based. It is the same that underlies our system of government, and of law: the equality of every individual citizen.
Tags: featured, ideology, participation
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Justin Trudeau should not glibly dismiss universal programs
There are understandable reasons to balk at the prospect of creating new universal programs. The start-up costs can be daunting and if Ottawa is to share the burden with the provinces, as it must, then it will have to wade into the forbidding fed-prov morass. Still, at least in the case of pharmacare, and arguably for daycare, too, the evidence is clear that both the public and the economics support a universal program. So why the opposition?
Tags: child care, economy, featured, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, pharmaceutical, women
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Federal Budget a Disappointment for Poverty Fighters
Ottawa has been called upon to create a national child care strategy and a poverty reduction strategy to honour a number of international agreements… there’s little dedicated spending to chip away at poverty in the country and no concrete plan, such as one based in human rights, backed by legislation, with rigorous time lines and a promise of federal poverty advocate.
Tags: budget, child care, economy, jurisdiction, poverty, standard of living
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On small-business tax reform, Bill Morneau was more right than wrong
… tightening up the rules around income sprinkling, large passive investment portfolios held inside small business corporations, and conversion of dividends into capital gains – was sound… the Senators were right to also call for a big, independent study of the whole tax system, and not just one part of it, to consider major reforms for reducing complexity, enhancing competitiveness and increasing fairness.
Tags: economy, ideology, tax
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Canada’s wealthy may have started a tax revolt, and Ontario is the first to notice
The provincial update revealed that personal income tax revenues in the country’s largest province were downgraded to come in nearly $2 billion lower than forecast in the spring budget, despite an upgrade in projected economic growth. No explanation was offered for this unusual set of circumstances — tax revenues should rise in a growing economy — but the suspicion is that high-earning Canadians are fed up seeing more than 50 cents on every dollar they earn over $200,000 taken by the taxman.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, tax
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Paradise Papers tell a troubling story about money and power
The Paradise Papers are doing nothing to soothe those who worry about the unseemly intertwining of money and power in politics or about the extent to which the economy is rigged by the few against the many. The government can do something about that. It can, for instance, close unfair and ineffective tax loopholes and collect what’s owed. Or it can sit back, defend the current arrangements and watch the cynicism grow.
Tags: budget, crime prevention, economy, featured, standard of living, tax
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