Archive for the ‘Governance Debates’ Category
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Good public policy doesn’t just happen. It takes hard work
Acting through the political process, governments try to resolve these competing judgments and choose their policy goals. This is a tough process… because there are always alternative ways to achieve that goal… First, a good policy achieves its stated objective… Second, a good policy has few undesirable side effects… Third, a good policy achieves its objective at the lowest possible cost… good policy needs to be communicated to the general public, whose support is needed for its implementation.
Tags: featured, ideology, participation
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Ottawa has made a mess of Indigenous policy in this country
… the entrenchment of their right to comprehensive negotiation about anything they claim affects their lives as natives, has placed the whole country in the absurd position of being held to blackmail by this nebulous community… by a policy of exaggerating their authority, vesting the natives with the right to extort treasure, retard reasonable development and tar the 95 per cent majority of Canadians of other descent as trespassers, interlopers, and usurpers, we have created a monster…
Tags: budget, ideology, Indigenous, jurisdiction, participation, rights
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First Nations leaders break with Ottawa on environmental policy
The AFN’s rebuke on what they believed to be “co-development” of environmental legislation illustrates the significant challenges the Liberals face as they look to put those principles in practice. Rather than insist on the right to free, prior and information consent, the Liberals’ principles for relations with Indigenous people says the government “aims to secure” their consent “when Canada proposes to take actions which impact them and their rights, including their lands, territories and resources.” Mr. Carr said last week that the government must strike a balance among interests when assessing major projects like pipelines and mines.
Tags: economy, ideology, Indigenous, jurisdiction, participation, rights
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Election reform is coming to Canada — somewhere, somehow, and soon
Justin Trudeau may have put the issue on ice at the federal level, having quite spectacularly reneged on his 2015 campaign promise to make that the last election to be held under first past the post. But elsewhere change is very much in the air. Ontario has passed legislation allowing the province’s municipalities, if they choose, to use ranked ballots for their elections… B.C., too, voted by a majority to switch to a form of PR…
Tags: featured, ideology, jurisdiction, participation
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A good day for press freedom
… Members of Parliament passed the Journalistic Source Protection Act, which originated as a private member’s bill in the Senate, marking a major step forward for press freedom. We will finally be joining the United States, Britain, France and others in providing a legal safeguard for the privileged relationship between source and reporter.
Tags: crime prevention, ideology, rights, standard of living
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Bill Morneau should refine tax proposals, then look at larger reform
Surely these changes would have been easier to swallow had they been part of a holistic tax reform agenda, guided by clear principles… those affected might understandably wonder, why us? … especially when there are so many more costly and regressive loopholes still on the books.
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, tax
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Are wealthy Canadians paying their fair share of taxes?
Our tax system has become the ultimate insider deal, in which the well-connected consistently rewrite the rules to escape the rational and just responsibilities that should be placed upon them by a progressive income-tax system in a democratic nation…If middle-class Canadians had the same attitude toward paying taxes that the people at the top did, our country would be just another bankrupt, basket-case banana republic. Democracy is not free, nor is it particularly cheap.
Tags: economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
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Planned tax changes pit lawyers, bar association on opposing sides
“We lawyers – myself included – are a privileged group, and I am uncomfortable with the CBA leveraging that privilege to advocate for the personal financial benefit of a few,” said Emily MacKinnon, a lawyer at McCarthy Tetrault LLP, who started the petition. “The CBA’s job is to advocate for things that affect lawyers as lawyers, not to act as a tax lobby group.”
Tags: economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
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Should the loudest voices prevail on tax reform?
Why are 100 per cent tax rates OK for low-income seniors, yet many among the top one per cent become apoplectic when the finance minister proposes to bring their tax rates back in line with that of every other high-income individual? Of course, Morneau’s proposals are still a work in progress. This is a complex area of tax law, so consultation is clearly important. But the loudest voices are not neutral.
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, tax
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The problem with Trudeau’s high road
Apparently a lot of people who’ve incorporated are sensitive about having this gap between personal and small-business tax rates called a “loophole,” but what the heck: It’s a loophole, in the sense that it was never designed as a goal of public policy… If the government’s goal is fairness, then why can’t Morneau discuss the tax treatment of companies as big as his own?
Tags: economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
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