Archive for the ‘Governance’ Category
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PCs take Ontario back to bad old days of political fundraising
… 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…
Tags: budget, child care, disabilities, Health, homelessness, ideology, mental Health
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Premier Doug Ford and the politics of spite
… his most attractive quality for many very vocal supporters is not what he will do for them, but what he will do to the people they hate. That’s why his political rhetoric is so laser-focused on “downtown elites” and other imagined enemies: who he is standing up for is less important than who he is taking down… If suspicions of petty vindictiveness as a guiding principle of government could be waved away in the early going, this week has made it all the more obvious that it is true.
Tags: budget, ideology
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Ford government is still ducking the toughest questions
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.
Tags: budget, housing, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Ontario Tories cut taxes and oversight protections for environment, vulnerable children, and francophones
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.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, rights, tax, youth
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
The culture war has been won, so now we fight about words
The long-running fight over language – in which the words and phrases of the ideologically earnest are rejected as “politically correct” – is being mistaken for some larger and more irreconcilable battle over underlying ideas and beliefs. Those who are truly intolerant and opposed to pluralism – those who think social justice is not just an awkward phrase but a bad idea – are a small and declining group. But that group is manipulating language conflicts to their political advantage.
Tags: featured, ideology
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
The left has yielded language to the right
… 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 »
Doug Ford’s Government for the (Old) People
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.
Tags: budget, ideology, standard of living, youth
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Ontario city rushes in where first-past-the-post adherents fear to tread [Ranked Ballots]
London, Ont., will be the first Canadian city in recent history to elect representatives using ranked ballots, in which voters mark their top three choices rather than just one, allowing an instant runoff in which losing candidates are eliminated and votes redistributed until someone has a majority. And once it’s over, the spin battle will begin – about whether that system deserves to be adopted elsewhere, or whether it’s enough of a bust that it shouldn’t even be used again here.
Tags: featured, ideology, jurisdiction
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Federal spending tops $332 billion as revenue gets a $20 billion boost
… revenue was up by $20.1 billion, or 6.9 per cent, from 2016-17 to $313.6 billion. Driving part of that increase was an additional $9.9 billion in personal tax revenue. Officials said Friday said that was in part due to a rebound of personal tax revenues from 2016-17. The drop that year was caused when high-income earners declared income in the 2015 tax year to avoid higher taxes for those making more than $200,000 introduced by the Liberals for 2016.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
The evidence is clear. Canada needs electoral reform
The imperative of moving to proportional representation is neither a right-wing nor a left-wing point of view. It’s simply democratic common sense. And recent Canadian election results underline the urgency of getting a move-on… In a proportional system, every vote will be taken into account equally… Three of the past five federal elections have produced minority governments. With a first-past-the-post electoral system, this can be a recipe for increasing instability… such a system exaggerates the effects of even tiny swings in voting
Tags: featured, ideology, jurisdiction, participation
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
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