Archive for the ‘Governance Policy Context’ Category

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PCs take Ontario back to bad old days of political fundraising

Tuesday, November 20th, 2018

… buried within the… Restoring Trust, Transparency and Accountability Act… are a set of changes that would at the least loosen, and potentially eviscerate, the province’s new campaign finance regime… What urgent public imperative requires that corporations and unions be allowed to donate to political parties — and not openly but surreptitiously?… there’s no reason parties need to spend anything like as much as they do, and lots of reasons to prefer they should spend less…

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Ford government is still ducking the toughest questions

Friday, November 16th, 2018

The government is giving small businesses a tax break and has forecast the potential of more breaks for businesses down the line. It’s rolling back a planned tax increase on the wealthiest Ontarians and cutting income tax for the lowest-paid workers. But given how little tax they pay now they’ll end up with far less money in their pockets than they would have if Ford hadn’t cancelled a planned raise in the minimum wage to $15.

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Ontario Tories cut taxes and oversight protections for environment, vulnerable children, and francophones

Friday, November 16th, 2018

Premier Doug Ford is cutting taxes for low-income earners, lifting some rent controls, and slashing oversight protections for the environment, vulnerable children, and Ontario’s French-speaking minority… further cuts loom in next spring’s budget… critics denounced the elimination of the environmental commissioner, the child advocate, and the French-language services commissioner as independent officers of the legislature.

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Doug Ford’s Government for the (Old) People

Thursday, October 25th, 2018

Premier Doug Ford’s self-proclaimed “Government for the People” is looking more like the Government for Old People. Or more precisely, the Government that Doesn’t Get Young People. Ever since taking power last summer, the Progressive Conservatives have targeted our youth for the biggest take-aways — in the workplace, on campus, and in our environment.

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Ontarians did not sign up for deep cuts in services

Thursday, October 4th, 2018

… According to that report [by financial consultants EY Canada and released last week] Ontario could “reconsider application of universality to all programs,” opting instead for “means-testing to selected programs.” … It provides no specifics. But just about the only two services the province provides to Ontarians without a fee, regardless of their income, are health care and public education.

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We should judge decisions, not judges

Saturday, September 15th, 2018

Of course politicians are elected and judges are appointed. But that does not mean that governments should be free from the scrutiny of the courts. Nor that judges must be elected for that scrutiny to be legitimate… But Canadian courts have largely avoided the deep ideological and partisan divisions we see south of the border.

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Crazy rich Canadians: How to tax the 1%

Saturday, September 1st, 2018

… federal and provincial governments have pursued the wrong strategy by pushing up rates above 50 per cent. Instead, a far better approach would have been to broaden tax bases that would have mitigated rather increased the scope for tax avoidance and, at the same time simplify, reduce distortions and improve fairness… it’s time to have a serious effort at reviewing the tax system to grow the economy and make taxes fair.

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Canada’s constitution, and the contradiction that works

Friday, May 4th, 2018

… the preservation of provincial diversity and the promotion of national unity. The search for the right balance between those contradictory constitutional impulses has defined 150 years of Canadian constitutional law. Adding Indigenous jurisdictions to the equation will equally shape the next century. It is the contradiction between the unity and diversity inherent in Canada’s overlapping constitutional jurisdictions that creates the capacity for our intense national disagreements, but also the constitutional theory that makes Canada work.

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The federal budget is out. How does it measure up?

Saturday, March 3rd, 2018

This year’s budget takes some positive steps forward on gender equality and science funding, but comes up short on the bold policy moves that will make a real difference for Canadians—universal child care, pharmacare, health care, and tax fairness… when it comes to substantive action to advance a truly feminist agenda, we’re still waiting for the big investments required to build a more equitable and inclusive economy. Here’s some of what was missing from Budget 2018…

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What is GBA+? The federal intersectional doctrine that governs everything now

Friday, March 2nd, 2018

It’s not just gender. The symbol… illustrates all the other “identity factors” that make up GBA+. The whole point of the program is to ensure that bureaucrats aren’t designing tone-deaf programs that accidentally ignore whole swaths of the population… Effectively, it’s a series of checks to make sure that policy makers aren’t just designing programs for people who think and act like themselves.

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