Archive for the ‘Governance Debates’ Category
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Federal audits crush crucial debate [charitable organizations]
First, the Harper government eliminated funding to organizations with whom they disagreed. Dozens of human rights, anti-poverty, women’s and policy research organizations were wiped out, or survive as pale shadows of their former selves. Then the Harperites went after unions, trying to block their ability to advocate for measures that benefit their members as well as the broader Canadian society.
Now they are going after charitable organizations that have been critical of their policies.
Tags: budget, ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
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Why is David Dodge arguing for deficit spending?
Mr. Dodge… argu(es) for slowing down today’s drive to budget balance in order to make room for greater infrastructure spending… with lower interest rates more projects become economically viable… First, how do we choose the projects?… Second, how do we control the costs?… The third challenge for a new infrastructure program is how to account for the spending in a clear and transparent way.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, standard of living
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Ontario’s NDP needs to rediscover its core values
With Wynne’s sense that Ontario, like Canada, is a place of fairness and Horwath’s dalliance with the mushy middle, we would all be better off with an NDP that is truly informed by Tommy’s compass. The continued use of a weather vane will take Ontario’s NDP further down the road of irrelevance.
Tags: budget, ideology
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Wynne’s Win, and the Agony of Right-Wing Pundits
Ever since the so-called ‘free-trade’ deal with the U.S. Canadians have been sold a bill of goods by the economic and political elites about there “being no alternative” to small, mean, punitive and arrogant government. With the NDP’s apparent abandonment of principle in favour of crass opportunism and consumer populism, it seemed activist government was well and truly buried… Most important is demonstrating to voters across the country that governments can do things that make their lives better — that voting can make a difference.
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, pensions, poverty, standard of living, tax
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Hudak’s downfall was abandoning traditional Ontario conservatism
… the provincial election sent the Tories a clear and very Ontario message – moderation, balance and humility are back. The absence of all three in the campaign of Tim Hudak was the precise reason for the loss of seats to Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals… Ontarians also said something clearly to the U.S. Tea Party tactics of wedge, extreme political strategies: “Saddle up and head back to where you come from; we are not buying.”
Tags: budget, ideology
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Tim Hudak offered a vegan tasting menu when all Ontario wanted was the fish
The right has to dial down this monomaniacal notion that everything in an economy hinges on taxation. If business activity and jobs varied inversely with the level of taxation the world’s epicenter of commerce would be the Bahamas. When Tim Hudak promised to lower business taxes all voters in this program-rich province saw was lower government revenues… Canada is not in fact turning to the right so it’s up to the nation’s conservatives to change course if they want to woo rather than war against the electorate.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
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The Ontario election was a referendum on fiscal conservatism. Fiscal conservatism lost
… the public were presented with a clear choice: cut spending or increase it, cut taxes or raise them, borrow less or borrow more, and in every case chose the latter — by a margin of more than two to one, adding the Liberal and NDP vote together… the Liberals… should proceed with the feckless, big-spending policies they were elected on. Yes, they’re ruinous, but that’s democracy.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, standard of living
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Wynne’s opponents misread Ontario’s basic moderation
The Conservatives… are the party of small-town and rural Ontario, areas that are losing population, seats and clout. They are next to nowhere in all the urban areas of Ontario, which remains fundamentally a moderate political place. Mike Harris, it turns out, was an anomaly… Ontario is about to live through a kind of experiment: that a government can spend the province into a better economic place by directing public money into businesses and infrastructure, in the hope that this injection of public money will create eventually more revenue for the treasury.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, standard of living
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Kathleen Wynne’s victory sends a strong message
Her new government can pass some of the progressive measures it promised, such as a boost in pay for front-line home-care workers, and a $29-billion plan for transit and infrastructure (half of which will be spent in the greater Toronto region). The Liberals should also press ahead with a made-in-Ontario pension plan, an example to the rest of the country. But the new Wynne government will also have to come to grips with Ontario’s worrisome fiscal reality.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, pensions, standard of living
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Afraid to tax, provinces face debt by a thousand cuts
[In Ontario] program spending has been checked, but revenues have slumped… We live, however, in a tax-adverse time. Politicians of every stripe are scared silly of even mentioning higher taxes, the assumption being that that way lies the political trap door… Provinces, much more than Ottawa, are employee-heavy because they deliver labour intensive programs (health, education), whereas Ottawa writes cheques to people and provinces.
Tags: budget, ideology, standard of living, tax
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