Archive for the ‘Governance History’ Category
Crown must settle with First Nations for breaching Robinson treaties: Supreme Court
Thursday, August 1st, 2024
The Crown made a mockery of its treaty promise to the Anishinaabe in Ontario by freezing annual payments to First Nations for 150 years, and it now must make things right, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled… The decision noted that the Crown has derived “enormous economic benefit” from the land through mining and other activities over the years, while First Nations communities have suffered with inadequate housing and boil-water advisories. Lawyers for the plaintiffs said people have been living in abject poverty.
Tags: budget, featured, Indigenous, rights, standard of living
Posted in Governance History | No Comments »
For Ed Broadbent, socialism meant providing for average people — and fighting for the cause
Sunday, January 28th, 2024
For Ed, democratic socialism meant waging a constant battle against the inequality-producing tendencies of the market. It meant institutions that were democratically accountable shaping markets to serve the needs of people not private interests… The right to affordable housing and dental care, for example… ought to be guaranteed rights of citizenship. Being rights, not privileges, they should be available to everyone
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
Posted in Governance History | No Comments »
Bleeding the patient: tracking five years of Ontario revenue reductions
Sunday, January 28th, 2024
Since 2018, the Ministry of Finance has made close to 30 policy changes that have cut taxes, cut fees, and paid out large sums in the form of tax credits. As the table below shows, those changes are draining a minimum of $7.7 billion from the provincial treasury in 2023-24… it looks like it’s coming out of public services… successive governments have deliberately bled themselves dry and then pled poverty afterward.
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance History | No Comments »
Always ahead of her time, Kathleen Wynne has some advice as she prepares to leave Queen’s Park
Wednesday, April 6th, 2022
The pioneering ideas Wynne fought in vain for are back in vogue after the realities of the pandemic: Child care. Check. Pharmacare. Check. Paid sick days. Check. Minimum wage increases. Check. Basic income support. Check. Wynne’s defeat led to the demise of her reforms in all these areas, as Ford’s Tories systematically dismantled what she had built. Within days of taking power, the PCs pulled the plug on her OHIP+ drug program and then went down the list.
Tags: child care, economy, Health, housing, ideology, mental Health, pharmaceutical, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Governance History | No Comments »
Canada needs a new grand national bargain: Quebec and Alberta
Tuesday, October 13th, 2020
Canada’s greatest challenge now is to get a new national grand bargain in the face of multiple external adversities – COVID-19, international forces that are increasingly hostile to Canada and its resource industries… Canadians themselves are ready – they are pragmatic and they want a united country that is serious about climate change… The challenge for Ottawa, the provinces, the Indigenous community and the business community is to find mutually supportive ways forward.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living
Posted in Governance History | No Comments »
How Canadians learned the art of sharing
Monday, August 17th, 2020
The often-fractious Canadian federation is certainly not without defects – and the now-convoluted equalization program is flawed. But since Ottawa sent out the first equalization cheques in April, 1957, that willingness to share has encouraged social unity and mutual trust. We save ourselves when we save each other.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance History | No Comments »
It took a disaster for Doug Ford to abandon Mike Harris’s destructive legacy
Saturday, June 27th, 2020
Never mind the rhetoric about cutting red tape, slashing taxes, unplugging photo radar, downsizing government and downloading welfare, its underpinning is simply this: Politics shall henceforth be transactional. Not transformational. Ask not what you can do for your country or province. Ask what your government can do for you to keep more money in your pocket… But it took the COVID-19 crisis to truly unravel that revolution — at least for now.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, privatization, standard of living
Posted in Governance History | 1 Comment »
The same old stories: How the narratives around Canada’s political parties become pathology
Sunday, October 6th, 2019
Parties and their leaders are encumbered and shaped by their histories and internal and external expectations. Even if there have been some unexpected twists at times, each occupies a distinct space in the Canadian political system. And each is prone to following its past patterns and pathologies.
Tags: ideology
Posted in Governance History | No Comments »
Let us now give thanks for Michael Wilson’s GST
Wednesday, February 13th, 2019
The GST was designed to be revenue-neutral; its goal was not increasing government revenue but instead raising it in a smarter, more progressive and more economically efficient way… Value-added taxes tax spending and encourage saving. Traditional sales taxes are regressive, falling hardest on low-income people, but credits for low-income Canadians make the GST progressive. The revenue is fairly stable. The system of input credits makes tax evasion far less likely than under a sales tax.
Tags: economy, ideology, tax
Posted in Governance History | No Comments »
The left has yielded language to the right
Monday, November 5th, 2018
… the biggest rhetorical victory of the right has been its capture of the term “populist.” Historically in North America, populism has had both left and right variants. Some were anti-immigrant and racist. But the most successful, such as the People’s Party of the late 19th century or the Progressives of the early 20th were left-leaning… populism has been no stranger to either Canada or the U.S. So it seems odd that it has become, among left-liberals, a dirty word.
Tags: economy, ideology, immigration, participation
Posted in Governance History | No Comments »
Recent Comments