Recently I took a Globe & Mail columnist to task for arguing that Ontario’s public school teachers are overpaid. As a humble blogger I hardly expect a response from such a great luminary as Margaret Wente, but I do want to return to the topic anyways, because a couple of
Continue readingTag: Economy and Taxation
The Sixth Estate: Harper Regime May See Quebec EI Demands as Opportunity, Not Problem
When the Parti Quebecois announced that one of their strategies as a new government — if they ever form one — would be to provoke a fight with the federal government over who runs the Employment Insurance system, I don’t mind telling you, it worried me. Not because of anything
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Race-Baiting, National Post Style
The National Post has an interesting article arguing that over the past couple of years CSIS has been monitoring relationships between the First Nations and the government of China. The evidence is flimsy but plausible. The major Chinese corporations now active in the oil patch are part-owned by the Chinese
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Petro-State Politics Threaten Democracy, Sovereignty, Common Sense
Another day, another Canadian oil company swallowed up by its foreign competitors. Oh well, right? Here’s a fun fact from history: Stephen Harper used to be a Liberal activist, even after he moved to Alberta. He abandoned Trudeau over the National Energy Policy, and the NEP still provokes howls of
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: National Post Proposes Privatization of Market Index That is… Already Private!
There’s been a great deal of nonsense in the press about the ongoing price-fixing scandal in the banking sector — in which, in case you haven’t heard yet, there is mounting evidence that for the past several years somewhere between 2 and 20 of the world’s largest banks colluded to
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: What You Should Have Read About in Yesterday’s Unemployment Rate News
As usual, the moment StatsCan’s monthly jobs survey numbers go even slightly squirrelly, the media proves utterly unable to handle it. When news broke yesterday, Canadians were variously told that the employment rate was unchanged, that the job market was in bad shape, and that the job market was doing
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Reform of Pampered Public Service Must Begin at the Top
Okay, first of all, is there any real doubt where this mysterious leak of a confidential government report on public service sick leave actually comes from? Whether you agree with it or not, you should be a little bit cautious about being distracted by what’s obviously a leak from a
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics on Canada’s Poverty Rate
Recently the National Post’s resident anti-government wingnut, William Watson, sallied forth with a strangely positive report on what he calls Canada’s poverty rate, which he says has fallen to an all-time low of 9%. (What he doesn’t mention is that it fell dramatically under Chretien and (dare I say it)
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Four Trillion-Dollar Industries the Canadian Government Could Invest In
I want to follow up on my recent post, suggesting that rationally planning for the future might not be such a stupid idea after all, by turning to the next obvious question: How could we plan for the future? What ideas should take priority? Where do we want Canada to
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Employment Insurance and the Big Brother State
I’m writing this because I’m once again forced to wonder how small-government “libertarian” conservatives can actually express support for the present government. The new proposal for EI, according to the minister, doesn’t mean kicking off people who would be eligible for EI today, or at least it only involves kicking
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Institute for Research on Public Policy Compromising Political Neutrality
The Montreal-based think tank Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP) has recently been in the news for publishing a study which, in the media’s collective eye, purports to disprove NDP leader Tom Mulcair’s comments about “Dutch disease” — basically, blaming the decline in Canadian manufacturing on the rise of
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Let’s All Feel Sorry for the Tarsands Industry
On behalf of Westerners with an IQ above 85, let me just say that Tom Mulcair does not owe me an apology for stating the obvious truth that the currency adjustments caused by our massive oil exports have consequences for other sectors of the economy. And let me also say
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Spending Like Drunken Cons, Part 2: Conservatives Miss Their Debt Projections Yet Again
I have only two posts planned on the 2012 budget. Unlike the professional media, I am not a trained poodle, and I will not degrade myself through weeks of high-pitched yapping in exchange for the privilege of being invited into the annual budget lockup. The legitimacy of the government is
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Sixth Estate’s prediction for the 2012 budget…
… is that there will not be one single professional journalist who asks the only question worth asking: How does this government propose to create and maintain a balanced budget while continually cutting taxes? There is no other question worth asking. I see no further purpose in even making the
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: I Am a Bread and Butter Canadian and I Want Government Out Of My Life
It’s hard to know where to begin with this article from the Hill Times, which twice alludes to Immigration Minister Jason Kenney as the “Minister for Curry in a Hurry” and also quotes The Virgin Kenney snarkily telling a solidly right-wing audience at the Manning Networking Conference that if only
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Ontario-Funded Think Tank Says Ontario Not Getting Enough Transfer Payments
Alternate title: Toronto Star Leaves Key Piece of Information Out of Coverage of Mowat Centre. The Mowat Centre, it seems, is unhappy about the state of federal-provincial transfers in this country. Ontario and British Columbia are being short-changed to the tune of billions of dollars because it fails to account
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Globe & Mail Says Canada Needs More Indebted Seniors
There comes a point when you’ve moved past trying to stay optimistic in the face of bad news into the realm of the simply deluded — or, no better, into that of the propagandist. Few of my readers will be surprised to learn that I think the Globe & Mail
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Government By Gimmick
Yesterday the Harper regime’s Minister of Graft and President of the Treasury Board, the Dishon. Tony Clement, proved that he is not only corrupt but also an incompetent buffoon: Minister Clement announced that the Government is moving forward with the Commission’s recommendation to implement a “One-for-One” Rule to control administrative
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: BS Fraser Institute Study Advocates Privatization of Minority Language Rights
The Fraser Institute’s first report of the new year is a strident attack on provincial bilingualism policies which attempts to count the costs of providing services to minority populations and, predictably, argues that the best solution is to “privatize” these services, meaning that either the government or, preferably, private citizens
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Would-Be Foreign Influencer in the National Post: Our Incomes Can be Infinite!
I have very little to do with the Cato Institute, preferring to spend my time jousting with their intellectually subordinate Canadian cousins, the Fraser Institute. But I couldn’t help notice the following manic rant about the importance of economic inequality in the National Post by Cato “scholar” Michael Tanner, not
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