Posts Tagged ‘tax’
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How we created a Canadian prison crisis
Prisons in most parts of Canada are experiencing overcrowding, violence, insufficient rehabilitative programs, a lack of graduated, supportive reintegration programs for prisoners returning to communities, and inadequate mental and physical medical attention for an increasingly older and needier prison population. Our prisons are no longer able to provide the tools and incentives to reform prisoners and return them to a life free of crime in the way that they have done in the past.
Tags: budget, corrections, crime prevention, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | 1 Comment »
How a modest tax change can help low-income families and lower inequality
A modest change to the tax system that converts existing non-refundable tax credits to credits that are refundable constitutes an effective step toward improved income security for Canada’s poorest families in the fashion of a guaranteed annual income. The new benefits would be almost entirely realized by families below or near Statistics Canada’s Low-Income Cut-off and so the poorest families would benefit the most… improv[ing] the fairness of tax filing while addressing Canadian income inequality.
Tags: featured, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Austerity’s vicious circle
… cuts target services for the most vulnerable… We lag in tackling inequality and poverty… Austerity creates a cycle of erosion and distrust. As public services are squeezed, we get less, we wait longer, we pay more out of pocket, we get angry with government and, ironically, become less willing to pay the taxes that would stop this erosion… The debate we need is precisely about what those wise choices are, about what and whom government is for and whether we are willing to pay the price for the Canada we want.
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Do Canadian voters even know where their self-interest lies?
… support for policies that benefit the select few reflect a simple misunderstanding… That 87 per cent of the public have nothing to gain from income splitting and 95 per cent have nothing to gain from higher TFSA limits does not mean they have nothing to lose. The unavoidable consequence of such policies is that the overwhelming majority of Canadians will be losers in the form of future public-service cuts or tax increases.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, participation, tax
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Capitalism should be for the many, not the few, book argues
What role government must play is central to Reich’s just-published Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few. The title beguiles because, as we all know, we’re in a mess. “The issue of widening inequality, the decline of equal opportunity, the stagnation of median wages, [these] have become central issues”… The book runs much deeper than executive winnings. Bankruptcy rules that favour the big over the small, diminished union power, the agglomeration of market power into near monopolies…
Tags: economy, featured, globalization, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living, tax
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
The Inequality Debate: We can do something about it
The first step is to restore the welfare state. Since 1980 there has been an unwinding of redistributive policies in OECD countries, with adverse distributional consequences… It’s one of the reasons income inequality in Canada is greater than in France, Germany or Japan. To change this involves raising taxes… based on a return to progressive income taxation… But reducing inequality is not just a matter of taxes and spending… [It’s also] the market distribution of income: what people receive in wages, interest and other forms of capital income.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, poverty, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Policy Context | No Comments »
The Inequality Debate: Canada’s middle class is losing ground
Global markets and a revolution in technology hold the promise of prosperity, a promise that needs sustained policy attention because it is fickle, uncertain, and generates higher inequality, both in the United States and in Canada… In Ontario, the typical income has not grown since 1999, and things are not much different in Quebec. There has been no middle-income prosperity and the only winners have been those who already had the most.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, participation, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Tory budget surplus came at cost to public safety ‘
The Harper government has aggressively deregulated, devolving ever-more freedom to companies to make their own judgments of risk versus profits. The new company-led Safety Management System was supposed to complement traditional regulatory oversight, but without adequate regulatory resources, the companies were effectively regulating themselves… Is it worth government compromising its responsibility to protect the public for the sake of a trivial and – most economists agree – meaningless budgetary surplus?
Tags: budget, crime prevention, economy, ideology, privatization, standard of living, tax
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Prescription for change: the case for a national drug plan
Our current patchwork of provincial programs and work-based plans means that access to drugs depends on where you live and where you work… for the 24% of Canadians with no coverage at all, the cost of medications falls to them alone… Last year alone 1 in 10 people in Canada did not fill a prescription because of the cost… Canada could save $11B through the implementation of a national drug plan.
Tags: budget, disabilities, Health, ideology, mental Health, pharmaceutical, standard of living, tax
Posted in Health Debates | 1 Comment »
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