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The cost of Ontario’s religious discrimination
Sunday, February 20th, 2011
February 19, 2011
…the Ontario government has taken it upon itself to ensure that one particular religious denomination continues to enjoy rights that are unavailable to the rest of the population. Wasting public money so that children of Catholic families (not “Catholic children”) can be bused on half-empty buses to half-empty schools is indefensible. While Catholics do indeed enjoy a constitutional privilege to publicly funded denominational schools, it has been shown by Newfoundland and Quebec that the constitution can be changed to reflect current societal values – those of fairness and equality.
Tags: budget, ideology, youth
Posted in Education Delivery System | 5 Comments »
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
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Don’t inflate inflation
Thursday, February 17th, 2011
February 16, 2011
… when the inflation rate is measured to be 2%, the “true” rate of inflation is only 1.4%… This is a problem for any firms or individuals with payments or receipts contractually tied to growth in the CPI… inflation has significantly reduced the purchasing power of the millions of Canadians who have unindexed incomes.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Governance Delivery System | No Comments »
Ontario’s equalization outrage welcome, if late
Thursday, February 17th, 2011
February 17, 2011
…there is a $25-billion gap each year between what Ontario businesses and individuals pay to Ottawa and what they receive back in the form of health and education transfers, pensions, income supplements and federal services. The gap has grown in recent decades, too, even as the economies of the have-nots have grown and the income disparity among Canada’s richest and poorest provinces has largely disappeared.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Governance Delivery System | No Comments »
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
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Give middle class a tax break
Sunday, February 13th, 2011
Feb. 10, 2011
If anyone deserves a break it is main street folk who pay an awful lot of personal, payroll, sales and other taxes. Personal income and payroll taxes alone totalled $260-billion in 2009, about one-sixth of GDP. Add in another $180-billion in sales taxes and Canadians have given up a significant share of their income to fund public services… federal and provincial governments have addressed the business tax burden in the past decade… On the other hand, governments have had a much less impressive record in reducing taxes on labour.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Ignatieff just doesn’t get it [Corporate Tax Cuts]
Saturday, February 12th, 2011
February 11, 2011
A recent OECD study, Do Tax Structures Affect Aggregate Economic Growth?, explores the direct relationship between various taxes and economic growth for 21 developed countries over the period 1971 to 2004. While taxes on personal income, consumption and property all had negative effects on per-person income growth, corporate income taxes had the most damaging effect… Yet Michael Ignatieff believes that corporate tax cuts are “giveaways” that “fatten profits” for the “richest and most powerful corporations.”
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Chantal Kreviazuk on her family’s struggle with mental illness
Wednesday, February 9th, 2011
February 8, 2011
… it’s hidden – the mental health world. There are limited treatments available… the cycle of the stopwatch medicating, stabilizing the patient and then throwing them back out to the conscious world… there has to be a better way… If your instincts tell you that the treatment doesn’t feel right, it might not be right. Great treatments involve the individual recognizing and taking responsibility for themselves, their disorder and their medication. The individual must “unlearn” their attitude of entitlement, and shift it to one of overall responsibility and service.
Tags: disabilities, Health, mental Health
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
After the Great Recession, the Great Regression
Monday, February 7th, 2011
Feb. 7, 2011
Wages, pensions, unemployment insurance, welfare benefits and collective bargaining are under attack in many areas as governments struggle to reduce debts swollen partly by the cost of rescuing banks during the global financial crisis… Europe’s mostly center-right governments are unwinding some cherished gains of the era of social progress that began after World War Two, at the price of widening inequality… But… there is an alternative. Germany’s booming growth, and the parallel recovery in the Netherlands and Austria… is driven by long-term investment in technology and innovation
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Stimulus, defence fuelling federal public-service growth
Monday, February 7th, 2011
Sunday, Feb. 6, 2011
Even without the spending burst of the economic stimulus program, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has substantially boosted federal government expenditures during his five years in office, and added thousands of bodies to the federal public service… the prime minister has also defended the growth by saying it has focused on specific areas such as defence and consumer safety, which top the Tory policy agenda…. Relative to the growth in Canadian population under the Harper government, the federal public service grew by 7.8%.
Tags: budget, ideology
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
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