Archive for the ‘Governance Policy Context’ Category

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We are rich Canadians and we support higher capital gains taxes

Tuesday, April 23rd, 2024

Ottawa wants to raise taxes for Canada’s ultra-rich. Rich people like us want that, too… with 1 per cent of the country’s residents holding over a quarter of all wealth. We need higher taxes to level out this rising wealth inequality… to fund new spending on priorities like Old Age Security, clean economy, medical care, child care, and housing, but it doesn’t go far enough to address class distortions… we’d also like to see a “super wealth tax,” an inheritance tax, and progressive property taxes

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Federal government goes big on housing—is it enough?

Wednesday, April 17th, 2024

2024 federal budget makes biggest investments in housing, care economy in generations with its second-to-last budget before an election… “This government has done more for housing than previous, more recent federal governments…” it will impose a higher tax on capital gains above $250,000 a year… “While the pharmacare program is still quite limited in scope… Combined with dental care, the confidence and supply agreement has driven major changes in the health care landscape in a very short period of time.”

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Fiscal folly in Ontario: New report reveals a cheapskate province

Tuesday, April 16th, 2024

In 2022-23, Ontario spent $3,251 less per person on public programs compared to the average of the other provinces… to reach the Canadian average, we would have to spend close to 27 per cent more on programs than we do now… On the revenue side, Ontario raises $4,033 a year less per person than the average of the other provinces… we would have to increase our total revenues this year by 32 per cent to be average.

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Court strikes down most of Ontario’s Mike Harris-era anti-panhandling law

Wednesday, April 3rd, 2024

Most of Ontario’s bans on panhandling in public places… have been struck down by a Toronto judge as unconstitutional… While finding that the ban on squeegeeing and panhandling in roadways should be upheld, Centa struck down all other prohibitions on soliciting donations in public, including from people near public toilets, payphones, ATMs, taxi stands and public transit stops, as well as on transit vehicles and in parking lots. 

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Justin Trudeau offers provinces billions of dollars for housing — but with strings attached

Tuesday, April 2nd, 2024

… $5 billion — will be tied to provinces promising to meet certain conditions, among them to allow multiplex townhouses and multi-unit apartments…. “It’s off the table for us,” Ford said last month. “We’re going to build homes, single-dwelling homes, townhomes, that’s what we’re focused on.” … The remaining $1 billion of the $6-billion infusion for housing infrastructure is to be directed to municipalities to address “urgent” infrastructure needs that directly create new housing

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Ontario is dead last in program spending—again

Sunday, January 28th, 2024

In 2022, Ontario’s program spending per capita was $3,863 less than the average of the other provinces. This means that for every dollar per person spent on programs in other provinces, Ontario spent 75 cents… there is no evidence—and no one is claiming—that Ontario’s low spending is the result of some magical efficiency in program delivery here. There’s nothing efficient about having too few nurses.

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The Ontario treaty deal is a game-changer for Indigenous rights 

Tuesday, June 27th, 2023

The $10-billion settlement announced this week between the Robinson-Huron First Nations, Ontario and the federal government signals a tectonic shift in Indigenous-government relations… Major developments of the Ring of Fire mineral properties and other northern Ontario projects are slowed by the absence of agreements with First Nations. A new prosperity-sharing formula will be critical in breaking future logjams.

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Justin Trudeau is leaving his stamp on the Supreme Court of Canada

Thursday, June 22nd, 2023

After 1982, the Supreme Court often had to determine which laws were consistent with the Charter and to clarify central aspects of the Charter… In the decades to come, Canada’s Supreme Court will undoubtedly issue rulings related to climate change, Indigenous Peoples, individual rights, the impact of technology, international relations and much more.

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Stephen Harper wasn’t obsessed with data. Here’s why Justin Trudeau is

Tuesday, April 4th, 2023

This whole fixation on data is, first and foremost, a big product of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in the realm of health care. Trudeau has talked often about how the government learned in the early days of the pandemic just how little information it had at its fingertips… The data deficit in the current public service has also been cited as one reason the government has needed to lean so heavily on outside consulting firms

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Federal budget 2022: Highest-earning Canadians face minimum tax rate increase

Friday, March 31st, 2023

Ottawa is raising the alternative minimum tax rate and imposing new limits on many of the exemptions, deductions and credits that apply under the system starting in 2024… it is increasing the alternative minimum rate to 20.5 per cent from 15 per cent starting in 2024… Wealthy Canadians pay the alternative minimum or regular tax, whichever is higher… about 32,000 Canadians will be covered by alternative minimum tax in 2024

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