Archive for the ‘Governance Policy Context’ Category
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Two rights groups launch Charter challenge of Bill C-51
The groups’ court filing called the law an inversion of the judiciary’s role as a protector of constitutional rights, and a violation of judges’ independence from government. The groups are seeking a declaration from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice that the law threatens the right to liberty, free speech, privacy, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure and the right to move between provinces, and must be struck down.
Tags: crime prevention, featured, globalization, ideology, jurisdiction, rights
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Canada’s major challenges as it finds its way into the future
A stronger capacity for mutual accommodation is the only lasting way to achieve sustainable purpose in a crowded and stressed world. This gospel does not require occupation or military victory; it works only if voluntary… as governments have failed to ensure the basic economic element of any free society – good-quality jobs and decent wages – their credibility and moral authority have begun to erode. Moral authority comes to those who recognize the real issues in the world.
Tags: economy, featured, globalization, ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
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The Tories scupper a basic right
The “law-and-order” Conservatives have just set an appalling precedent by using Bill C-59, the budget bill, to retroactively erase citizens’ Access to Information rights and to protect the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in connection with the now-defunct long-gun registry, one of the government’s pet hates. This casual assault on the rule of law is unprecedented, and abhorrent… Under the Information Act it’s a criminal offence to obstruct the commissioner and to destroy records to thwart a request.
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, rights
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Canada’s national security agencies need parliamentary oversight
Internationally, our Five Eyes intelligence allies (Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and the U.S.) and the majority of our NATO colleagues, all have oversight capability on national security matters. Their systems of governance allow for cleared legislators to evaluate the effectiveness of their government’s decisions, resources, training and plans. The absence of oversight in Canada is rather unusual among Western democracies and presents a glaring difference between us and our allies.
Tags: crime prevention, featured, globalization, ideology, rights, standard of living
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Ontario Budget 2015 – throwing everything but infrastructure under the bus.
You’d never know from reading this budget that there is a growing consensus that Ontario’s fiscal problems are on the revenue side, not the expenditure side. There’s nothing in the budget to address either the current revenue gap, or the prospect of Federal health funding cuts that will make that gap even wider… that Ontario’s investment in child care lags far behind that of Quebec… that Ontario’s investment in elementary and secondary education on a per-student basis lags behind that of competitor jurisdictions in the United States… [or] that Ontario’s investment per student in post-secondary education is the lowest in Canada.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, participation, standard of living, tax
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Five reasons why the Ontario budget is credible
It is not so much the $10.5-billion deficit for the fiscal year just ended, but the surge in the ratio of net debt to the size of the economy from 26.2 to 39.4 per cent over the past seven years. The situation cries for a credible plan to restore fiscal balance. For the first time, this budget presents one… The 2012 commission saw tremendous potential for extracting savings while maintaining and even improving the quality of services by changing the way they were being delivered.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, tax
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How C-51 will undermine Canada’s business climate
We are already concerned about the negative impact the activities of CSE and CSIS, including reports of spying on our trading partners, have had on Canada’s reputation. The impact of these new rules could collapse the necessary distance between investigative and executional powers. This distance should be increased, not done away with… Most importantly, we ask for data security. We know that many of our clients, including our government, will only host services in Canada because of the invasive privacy issues in the U.S.
Tags: crime prevention, economy, featured, globalization, ideology, rights, standard of living
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Harper fought the law and the law won
Ideologically, Harper claims to favour small government, but his taste for punishment leads to bigger and more costly government: more jails, more jailing, more solitary confinement, and so on. This is the American style. It doesn’t work here… All of Harper’s mandatory minimum sentencing laws resemble each other in that they chip away at judges themselves. In his world, judges – who exist to state reasons out loud, to balance punishment with mercy – might as well not be in the room.
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, ideology, rights, standard of living
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Federal budget a triumph of tax madness
They increased yearly federal spending well above the inflation rate. They cut taxes, especially the goods and services tax by one point, then another, at a cost to the treasury of a little more than $12-billion. They put some money into debt reduction… imported from Republican ideology in the United States… the idea is to shrink the state’s capacity to act by politically popular tax cuts and spending reductions.
The Conservatives have figured out that the opposition parties are too scared to oppose the vast majority of the tax cuts
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, standard of living, tax
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Bring information laws into 21st century
Legault is pushing for major changes… 85 in all — aimed at breaking the culture of secrecy that surrounds so many official activities in Canada. Instead of presuming that everything should remain secret until it can be pried out of government, the onus should be reversed: the presumption should be that information should be publicly available unless there are compelling reasons for it to remain secret. All parties should endorse this principle.
Tags: featured, ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
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