Archive for the ‘Governance Policy Context’ Category
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In us we trust?
Friday, March 18th, 2011
Mar 17 2011
… the question isn’t: Do Canadians trust Harper? It’s: Does Harper trust Canadians? Trust is an essential component in a successful society and politics is the main way that societies attempt to act together. Those with high trust levels tend to create programs like public health care or education. Those lacking trust do less together; at most they build prisons or surveillance systems to keep watch on each other… If we trust our leaders to use our taxes to do things we can’t achieve on our own, then we pay — not happily but willingly. If we don’t trust them, then we’d rather not pay and we choose leaders who will do less.
Tags: ideology, participation, privatization, rights, standard of living
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The sky-high cost of taxes
Friday, March 18th, 2011
… good cost-benefit analysis would make you judge proposed public expenditure in a very severe light… Taxes cause people to change their behaviour. Tax an activity and people will do it less or, in the case of corporations, they’ll do it somewhere else. They were doing whatever it is you decided to tax because it provided benefits. If the tax kills the activity, the benefits evaporate. Some of our tax rates are pretty high. Push them a little higher and you lose a lot of beneficial activity.
Tags: budget, ideology, tax
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Grey wave to hit provinces’ bottom line by mid decade
Tuesday, March 8th, 2011
Mar. 8, 2011
“On the path to restoring fiscal balance, provinces will have to deal with the implications of demographic trends for both revenue and program spending,” said Paul–André Pinsonnault, senior fixed-income economist at NBF. “The provinces are approaching a critical point and credible policies needs to be put in place to address this issue head on.”
Tags: budget, disabilities, Health, mental Health, pensions, standard of living
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Tax hikes or lower transfers Ottawa’s only deficit solutions
Monday, February 28th, 2011
February 28, 2011
When expressed as a share of GDP – which is the proper measure – the federal governments of Paul Martin and Stephen Harper are smaller than the one presided by John Diefenbaker… the Public Accounts of Canada reveals that the business of the federal government consists largely of sending cheques to individuals (the elderly, the unemployed, etc), to other levels of government (the Canada Health Transfer, equalization payments, etc) and to federal government bondholders (debt service payments)… A realistic deficit-reduction strategy has to involve higher taxes and/or lower transfer payments.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, tax
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British PM relaunches ‘big society’ campaign
Sunday, February 20th, 2011
Feb. 15, 2011
… the British Prime Minister. relaunched his “Big Society” vision of devolved power Monday, hoping to convince doubters there is more to his coalition government than deep spending cuts. Critics have panned his vision of engaged citizens, less state control and more philanthropy, calling it a vague and poorly constructed idea that may turn out to be little more than a fluffy smokescreen for the government’s cuts agenda. Mr. Cameron says it is his duty to cut a record budget deficit running at close to 10% of national output, but sees it as his passion to create a “Big Society” where citizens have more control over their own destiny.
Tags: budget, ideology, participation, philanthropy, standard of living
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Provinces face transfer cuts
Tuesday, February 15th, 2011
February 14, 2011
Today Ottawa transfers about $56-billion to the provincial and territorial governments, the three main provincial transfer programs being the Canada Health Transfer at $27-billion, the Canada Social Transfer (for child, post-secondary education and social programs) at $12-billion and Equalization (funds for those provinces with a weaker fiscal capacity) at almost $15-billion…. Given that transfers now make up the lion’s share of federal spending, transfer reductions will also make up the lion’s share of federal spending restraint.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology
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Chief statistician asked to rethink census for 2016
Saturday, February 12th, 2011
Feb. 11, 2011
Mr. Smith…has been asked to study how other countries gather information and report with options that could shape the 2016 census. Examples range from a register-based census, where governments dip into their records on their citizens, to surveying a different part of the country every year… if we could make a register[-based] census work in Canada, we could save buckets of money and avoid annoying a whole bunch of Canadians in asking them to fill out forms
Tags: ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
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Sovereignty-Association becomes reality
Wednesday, December 29th, 2010
December 29, 2010
It may not have its own passport, but to a great extent it has achieved sovereignty-association, the modified version of independence devised and pursued by Rene Levesque, the original father of a free Quebec. That the province has its own culture, customs, institutions and communal ambitions — unique from and oblivious to whatever may be happening in the English provinces – is taken for granted. Crucially, it has also devised a means to provide political separation at the point where the most formal representations of its place in Canada exist, at the federal government in Ottawa.
Tags: ideology, participation
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Ottawa gives Bill Clinton foundation special designation
Wednesday, November 24th, 2010
Nov. 23, 2010
The federal government has quietly given Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation a special designation that will allow it to receive indirect support from Canadian taxpayers… Canadians generally can’t donate to foreign charities and receive a tax break, and Canadian charities can’t make grants to international charitable organizations (the only exceptions are gifts to the United Nations and some foreign universities attended by Canadians)… the process for getting this kind of special exemption is shrouded in mystery… Only a handful of foreign charities have received this designation
Tags: globalization, ideology, philanthropy, tax
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EU officials decry Canada’s census decision
Wednesday, November 24th, 2010
November 23, 2010
The European Union’s leading statisticians are decrying the Canadian government’s decision to use “dormant legal powers” to scrap a mandatory detailed census of Canada this past summer, saying it undermined the independence of Statistics Canada… In its 2010 report, the European Statistical Advisory Board says the independence of every country’s statistical agency should be enshrined in law and cites Canada as an example of what can go wrong if governments are legally allowed to interfere in census-taking.
Tags: ideology, participation, rights
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