Archive for the ‘Governance Debates’ Category
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Job creation requires a government we can afford
We cannot go on borrowing $4,100 more per family every single year, forever… There’s only one way to balance the budget, and that’s to spend less. When well over half of every dollar of spending goes to salaries and benefits for government workers, spending less means having fewer government workers. That’s why we have said very directly that a balanced budget means going from 1.2 million government workers today to 1.1 million — the number we had in 2009.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, privatization, standard of living, tax
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The self-performed lobotomy of the left
In Britain, France, Spain, Sweden and Canada, among others, the main parties on the left are not only out of ideas… They stand for nothing but the bland promise of the status quo… Canada’s New Democrats, who once usefully fought the good fight in the name of social justice, now run away from the big problems in the bald pursuit of power… they all directly or indirectly rely on the same mercenary class of political consultants. The latter are largely political agnostics steeped in marketing and data analytics, not political theory.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology
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Stephen Harper will blow $43 billion this year on tax giveaways
… the Harper government, by starving the public coffers, is losing $43 billion that could be used to boost investments in axed services, build needed national programs, as well as balance the budget and pay down debt… median income taxpayers with kids (averaging between $42,450 and $56,505) would see between 2.8% to 2.9% increase in their after-tax income. But those tax savings can be quickly eaten up by increased costs that would otherwise be covered through public programs.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, privatization, standard of living, tax
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Hudak’s discredited doctrine a lucky break for Wynne
Fixated by their own mechanistic ideology, they blandly expect voters to understand intuitively — or religiously, as they seem to do — that destroying jobs will create jobs and that cutting taxes will increase revenue. It’s all so clear to them. Don’t you see, Ontario? Obviously, Ontario does — Ontario was a guinea pig in the politics of reckless austerity and a pioneer in its rejection.
Tags: economy, ideology, privatization, standard of living, tax
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Canada’s globally admired statisticians undercut
The Tories have downsized Statistics Canada… so severely that future governments will have to rely on blunt — and sometimes unreliable — tools to monitor socio-economic developments… Half of the agency’s workforce is gone. Hundreds of its programs have been dropped. The mandatory long-form census has given way to a voluntary household survey. It would cost tens of millions of dollars to reverse these changes
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, standard of living
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Ontario NDP sheds role as champion of the poor
Andrea Horwath, is so preoccupied with winning middle-class votes, assuring the business community she would be a responsible economic manager and saving tax dollars that she has scarcely said a word about poverty, homelessness, hunger, low wages or stingy social programs… She triggered the election by rejecting the most progressive provincial budget in decades, one that would have raised the minimum wage, increased the Ontario Child Benefit, improved welfare rates, and provided more support to people with disabilities.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, poverty, standard of living, tax
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Tim Hudak’s fear-based economic policy
Debt was a basis of growth for 5,000 years — as anthropologist and activist David Graeber has written — but only recently became a source of mass fear and shame. You can’t spend your way out of debt, the panicky say, though that’s the standard model in business: you go to the bank, acquire debt, then invest (i.e. spend) it… the question is: can you handle it rationally and prudently when the alternative is worse, like putting your family on the street or shattering institutions that make life civil.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, poverty, standard of living, tax
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Harper’s party is defined by its enemies. He likes it that way
By identifying enemies or hostile institutions, or by picking fights with individuals or institutions, Mr. Harper can better galvanize his supporters… The best emotion for firing up the core, or base, is anger. For there to be anger, there have to be threats; for there to be threats, there has to be a sense of interests or values put at risk by “others.” These “others” are invariably depicted as having their own interests to defend – separate from the interests of the “people” or the “hard-working taxpayers”
Tags: ideology, participation
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United Nations report backs First Nations against pipeline megaprojects
“It is difficult to reconcile Canada’s well-developed legal framework and general prosperity with the human rights problems faced by indigenous peoples.”… he pointed to the federal government’s limited success in resolving land claims, reducing poverty, improving education outcomes, and dealing fully with the disappearance and murder of more than 1,000 aboriginal women and girls over the past three decades.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, Indigenous, rights
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Canada falling in governance rankings because of Harper majority, report finds
Canada placed 20th out of 41 developed countries in overall policy performance, 17th in the quality of its democracy and 10th in governance. The country also scored in 26th in access to information, where the report found a “reluctance on the part of political and bureaucratic officials to release information that puts the government in a bad light.”… “Good governance requires evidence-based decision-making and [that] requires high quality data”
Tags: globalization, ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
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