Archive for the ‘Governance’ Category
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »
Alberta never really was all that conservative
The left is winning. They are raising taxes, they are running deficits, they are adding whole new government programs, like carbon trading or the Ontario pension plan — all things they were told were politically impossible. Of what comparable victory can the right boast in recent years? In what important way has government become smaller? What industry has been deregulated? What Crown corporation has been privatized? What corporate subsidy has been eliminated?
Tags: economy, featured, ideology
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Justin Trudeau takes mildly progressive stance
For a decade, Canadians have watched helplessly as the richest 1 per cent of the population has increased its share of the nation’s incomes. Their government, ideologically driven to cut taxes and unleash market forces, has done nothing to counteract this trend. Trudeau would. The worst thing about his economic blueprint is that it overlooks the poorest 30 per cent of Canadians. In his eagerness to help the middle class, the Liberal leader has excluded those who need help most.
Tags: budget, ideology, poverty, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Trudeau takes from the rich, gives to the median
… median incomes fell dramatically between 1976 (when Statistics Canada’s data start) and 1997… 1997 marked a significant turning point, and incomes have grown steadily since them. Moreover… the Canadian middle class has been holding up pretty well over the past 20 years… In 1976, the bottom income quintile received 27 per cent of all government transfers; this share had fallen to 19 per cent in 2011.
Tags: budget, child care, economy, ideology, poverty, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
The Tories want to have their cake and imprison it, too
Canadians… have been spending an additional $91-million a year in order to be less protected from crime…. The Conservative government has… slowed the rate of release for prisoners and this has contributed to a 6-per-cent increase in prison populations over the past four years… In fact crime rates have been dropping since 1991 – 15 years before the Conservatives came to power… “Truth in sentencing” is what the Conservatives call their policy of making it more difficult for inmates to be paroled.
Tags: budget, corrections, crime prevention, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Finance department assailed by AG for lack of tax monitoring
Finance does provide an annual Tax Expenditures and Evaluations report but the auditor said it falls short of information supplied in such other countries as Australia and France, where the future cost of expenditures, the administrative expense and the number of beneficiaries are included. There is no requirement to table the report in the House of Commons… As worrying as the lack of parliamentary oversight is the lack of systemic evaluation of particular tax credits.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Delivery System | No Comments »
You paid for these ads
… the government has booked a $13.5 million media blitz promoting the budget, even though many of its details were leaked in advance, and were extensively reported in the media before and after the budget. Some were announced publicly as long ago the 2011 election… the Government Advertising Act introduced in Ontario in 2004… gives the province’s Auditor General the authority to approve ads before they are made public… It should be copied everywhere.
Tags: budget, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Mulcair, Trudeau are far from boxed in by Harper’s budget agenda
… despite the Tories’ best efforts the coffers have not been drained… Despite the slump in oil revenues, Ottawa still expects to rack up a cumulative surplus of $13 billion over the next five years… Moreover, there’s an additional $12 billion-plus in savings to be found by cancelling the Family Tax Cut, the income-splitting program that will disproportionately benefit the wealthiest… $33 billion over five years to reinvest in more progressive programs
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
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
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
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
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Got a problem? Privatize it (and pay the price for selling off Hydro One later).
Hydro One’s financial statements show earnings of between nine and 11 per cent since its inception… Currently that revenue helps pay for hospitals, schools, and other public services… Why sell off a valuable asset with guaranteed returns of nine to 11 per cent per year when you can borrow that money for less than three per cent per year? Because it is a crown corporation, Hydro One doesn’t pay taxes to the federal government, instead, a payment in lieu of taxes is retained by our province.
Tags: budget, ideology, privatization, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Recent Comments