Archive for the ‘Governance Debates’ Category
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Top 10 List for Minister Morneau: Shadow Budget 2017
To set a credible path to balance, hold the line on transfers to other levels of government, contain Ottawa’s own compensation costs and shrink or eliminate many tax expenditures, including the age credit, the LSVCC credit and some boutique credits; To encourage businesses to grow, replace preferential tax treatment for small businesses with temporary preferential treatment for young businesses…
Tags: budget, economy, globalization, tax
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Don’t fear Trudeau’s proportional representation bogeymen
It’s important not to exaggerate how much would change under PR. It’s possible to win now, in a riding with several candidates, with as little as 28 per cent of the vote, and quite common to do so with less than 33 per cent… If I think a party would be bad for Canada, it’s my responsibility to get out and persuade my fellow citizens not to vote for them — not rig the system so they can’t.
Tags: featured, ideology, participation
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Proposed public sector wage hikes for execs are out of line
… there’s no evidence that current salary levels, along with the other benefits of public-sector employment, are insufficient to retain top talent… Thibeault’s rationale for OPG could just as easily apply to hundreds of other public-sector executives who head up our health care networks and transit systems… Allowing huge increases for any category would likely set off out-of-control demands across the entire public service
Tags: budget, ideology, standard of living, tax
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Trudeau’s broken promise on electoral reform betrays the public interest
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to abandon his commitment to make the 2015 election the last held under the broken first-past-the-post electoral system is one of the most cynical I’ve seen… The decision shows utter contempt for Parliament’s electoral reform consultations and the special committee’s recommendations to the government.
Tags: featured, ideology, jurisdiction, participation
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Divide and conquer: How the feds split the provinces in health talks
The Liberal government entered into the health accord talks with as much leverage as it could hope for. The federal government alone has the authority to determine the size and scope of the Canada Health Transfer, whether or not the provinces agree to it… Without a legal bargaining position, the provinces must rely on their ability to criticize and embarrass the federal government as leverage. The upcoming federal budget gives the Liberals another stick to wield.
Tags: budget, featured, Health, ideology, privatization
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Make Canada great. It’s in our hands, not Trump’s
… Australia spends just 9 per cent of GDP on health care. If Canada spent that little, we’d be saving more than $20-billion a year… How can we rethink our prison system, so that offenders, many of whom have mental health and addiction issues, get treatment and education and become less likely to reoffend? … Canada’s prosperity, though improved by American proximity and the efficiencies of trade, is not determined by it.
Tags: corrections, Health, participation, standard of living
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Economic challenges test Trudeau’s promise of more progressive path
No government wants to raise taxes. But there are modest steps Trudeau could take to relieve the fiscal pressure without great political risk, both of which he has promised. The first: collect what’s owed. Canada currently loses tens of billions of dollars annually through tax evasion… The second: deliver on the promise to review tax loopholes, many of which overwhelmingly benefit the rich with no obvious public utility.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, tax
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Conservatives need a moderate, humane agenda
Canadian voters have a keen sense of when the machine of government becomes too self-reverential, too captive of the left or right, too much about hopeful aspiration and too detached from day-to-day street-level reality. The duty of every Official Opposition is to put down the rose-coloured mirror and take up the magnifying glass to see and understand what modern society needs to encourage enterprise, productivity and genuine equality of opportunity…
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, standard of living
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Let demise of the U.K. be our warning
Britain has privatized itself at great cost… The National Health, Britain’s medicare, is collapsing from underfunding in a nation that has already privatized its rail, gas, electricity and water… the private sector is partly or fully responsible for parole, prisons, schools, roads, hospital services, mail, welfare assessments, court interpreters and much more… Next up for outsourcing/privatization are, seriously, child protection and the law courts.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living, tax
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Time for Ottawa to make sure top CEOs pay their fair share
… most of the compensation for the top 100 CEOs was in the form of stock options and grants of stock, which are taxed at just half the rate of regular salary or bonuses. This is an enormous tax break that costs the federal treasury an estimated $1 billion a year… runaway CEO pay highlights the broader and more serious issue of growing inequity in our economy, and all the social ills that come with it.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, tax
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