Archive for the ‘Governance Delivery System’ Category
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Tax is not a dirty word
Saturday, April 16th, 2011
Apr 15 2011
Thanks to the current demonizing of taxes, three levels of Canadian government — municipal, provincial and federal — fight not to be openly saddled with levying the things… Do we realize what a great deal we’re losing as we parrot the American Tea Party and demand lower taxes and the same level of services? Peace, order and good government doesn’t come cheap… The hard-right would have us believe you can just stop paying taxes, just as you can quit drinking coffee and have better sleeps and a more restful life… Taxes pay for good things that we don’t think about until they vanish.
Tags: featured, ideology, standard of living, tax
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HST: That didn’t hurt much
Sunday, March 20th, 2011
Mar 20 2011
A cut to the HST would take Ontario in the wrong direction. For one thing, it would be expensive. Reducing the rate even one point would cost over $2.5 billion in revenues, at a time when Ontario is facing ongoing annual deficits of more than $15 billion. For another thing, cutting the HST is a solution in search of a problem. The HST reform was a change in the way we tax, but it wasn’t a tax grab and it did not change people’s overall tax bills very much… having a broad tax base is fairer to everyone and it helps keep the tax rate low.
Tags: budget, standard of living, tax
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McGuinty government slashes redundant agencies
Wednesday, March 16th, 2011
Mar 15 2011
The Liberals are scrapping more than a dozen redundant agencies in the wake of a sweeping report urging better governance of provincial organizations… referring to the 258 agencies, boards, commissions, councils, authorities, foundations and trusts overseen by Queen’s Park… Gone are the Toronto Area Transit Operating Agency, the Social Assistance Review Board… {Their] elimination… will save only $200,000 a year. The government will, however, reap $4.2 million from the stadium agency’s bank account for provincial coffers, and any additional assets will be sold off.
Tags: budget, participation, rights
Posted in Governance Delivery System | 3 Comments »
Harper’s shadow public service
Monday, March 14th, 2011
Mar 14 2011
Economist David Macdonald decided to find out how many consultants, contractors and temporary workers the federal government was hiring and how much Canadians were paying for them. It took him about a year. What he discovered was a burgeoning “shadow public service.” Last year it cost taxpayers $1.2 billion. That was 79 per cent higher than when Prime Minister Stephen Harper took power in 2006. Despite a spending freeze in the federal bureaucracy, it is still growing by leaps and bounds… the government is building a parallel hiring system to replace workers who leave or retire.
Tags: budget, ideology, participation, privatization, rights
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Why we need the OMB more than ever
Monday, March 14th, 2011
Mar. 11, 2011
Rather than thwarting democracy, the OMB aids it. When Nimbyism is on the rise, as it is today, the interests of a vocal few can overwhelm the interests of the majority. In this case, the common good calls for denser, taller development at key points in the city. Without it, Toronto will never be able to accommodate its booming population growth without endless urban sprawl. As a check on unreasonable Nimbyism, the OMB is needed more than ever.
Tags: ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
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Access-to-information woes grow ever more absurd
Tuesday, March 8th, 2011
March 8, 2011
Many people have grown tired of delays in the treatment of Access to Information requests. That frustration is set to grow as the government has now decided to sacrifice some files in a bid to put the best possible face on the massive backlog in the system… That process, however, leaves some files sitting in the system, because they have already been deemed to be failures and no amount of work can restore their status. “Once a file is late, it’s late.
Tags: ideology, participation, rights
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Cash cow for the rest of Canada
Friday, February 25th, 2011
Feb 25 2011
The people of Ontario have become cash cows for other regions… Ontarians have the least accessible provincial programming in Canada… The province’s growth rate has been declining since equalization was put in place 50 years ago… there is evidence of chronic underinvestment in Ontario’s colleges, universities and mass transit systems, all of which are vital underpinnings of economic health… provincial policies have contributed to these problems. There is little doubt, also, that the huge difference between what the federal government puts into Ontario and what it takes out (about $25 billion in a typical year) is a key contributor…
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, standard of living, tax
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Paroles decline as Conservatives fill board positions
Monday, February 21st, 2011
Feb. 20, 2011
The percentage of offenders in Canadians prisons who are granted parole has dropped steadily as the Harper government fills up posts on the National Parole Board with like-minded conservatives. Two dozen members of the National Parole Board appointed since 2006 have donated to the Conservatives or have close political links to the party… the Tories had promised to make boards and tribunals more independent but since they were elected, have stacked them with loyalists.
Tags: corrections, ideology
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Don’t inflate inflation
Thursday, February 17th, 2011
February 16, 2011
… when the inflation rate is measured to be 2%, the “true” rate of inflation is only 1.4%… This is a problem for any firms or individuals with payments or receipts contractually tied to growth in the CPI… inflation has significantly reduced the purchasing power of the millions of Canadians who have unindexed incomes.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, standard of living
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Ontario’s equalization outrage welcome, if late
Thursday, February 17th, 2011
February 17, 2011
…there is a $25-billion gap each year between what Ontario businesses and individuals pay to Ottawa and what they receive back in the form of health and education transfers, pensions, income supplements and federal services. The gap has grown in recent decades, too, even as the economies of the have-nots have grown and the income disparity among Canada’s richest and poorest provinces has largely disappeared.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, standard of living
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